


If we make it through December

by bluesweatshirt



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: 5+1 Things, Christmas, Gen, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, There's like a minute of angst because of Infinity Wars, Tony Stark Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure, Tony Stark Has A Heart, but this is just fluff otherwise
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-19
Updated: 2020-12-26
Packaged: 2021-03-10 23:48:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 20,518
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28175667
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluesweatshirt/pseuds/bluesweatshirt
Summary: Five times that Tony and Peter spent Christmas together over the years, and one time they didn't.
Relationships: Peter Parker & Tony Stark
Comments: 10
Kudos: 98





	1. 2015

**Author's Note:**

> Hi all,
> 
> This is going to have 6 chapters in total. I've written the first three, so I'm going to post one per day (hopefully!). 
> 
> The title comes from the song "If we make it through December" by Phoebe Bridgers. Please, please go listen to this song!

i. 2015

Ben died on November 3rd. 

On the first Christmas Eve without him, Peter waited until it was dark, and then he slipped over the fence of the cemetery. 

“Hi,” he whispered nervously, sitting in the snow in front of the headstone, wrapping his jacket tighter around his chest. Ever since he’d gotten his new powers, it had been impossible to keep warm.

_ Benjamin Parker _

_ 1979-2015 _

_ Police officer, friend, beloved uncle _

_ Nothing is ever really lost, or can be lost.  _

“I miss you,” Peter continued quietly. His voice broke, and the tears began to spill over. He touched his cheek with surprise—he hadn’t cried about Ben’s death much yet. He’d been so empty and hazy, so focused on avoiding the aching guilt that came whenever he thought about his uncle. And maybe some part of him, until this exact moment, hadn’t really believed that it was real. That he would never see Ben again. That they would never watch  _ Parks and Rec  _ during pizza night, or head to the beach on a hot summer afternoon. That the past two months hadn’t just been some miserable, bizarre nightmare. 

“May and I decided to use a quote from Walt Whitman on the headstone,” he said, wiping his eyes. “I thought you’d like that.” Ben had studied literature in college, and he’d always wanted to write a novel. 

“Some day when I retire, kiddo,” he’d crow with a grin as Peter washed and he dried their dinner dishes. “You just wait. When we get rich from my book, I’ll buy us a house in the Hamptons, and then I’ll write a second book about how horrible rich people are. We’ll never wash another dish again!”

Now there was never going to be a book or a house in the Hamptons with obnoxious neighbors. There would be an empty chair next to May at his high school graduation in a few years. No more Father’s Day brunches. Christmas Eve had always been Peter and Ben’s thing, since May usually worked a double shift on the 24th so they could spend the 25th together as a family. He and Ben had decorated their old fake tree every year, straightening out the branches as best as they could and watching the Charlie Brown Christmas special. 

Now it was just Peter’s thing. 

“I’m sorry,” Peter whispered to the pristine headstone. 

As expected, there was no response. Just silence as snowflakes drifted down around him, melting on his eyelashes. 

The tears came easily. For so long he’d been numb. Now, it was as though he’d stood up and tried to put weight on a leg that had fallen asleep. The pain prickled and burned, reminding Peter of everything he hadn’t been feeling. 

“I’m sorry,” he wept. “I’m so sorry.” The dam was broken. He scrambled to his knees, brushing snow away from the base of the headstone to give his cold, chapped hands something to do. “Please don’t hate me. I’m so sorry. Please.”

He didn’t know how to live with this much guilt. It was everywhere, all the time. This was why being numb was easiest. He liked it best when he could curl up on his nest of blankets in his room and stare blankly at the wall, the hours slipping past without him noticing, until darkness had fallen and another day was gone. 

He hated the days like today—the days when his mind wouldn’t shut up, when he longed to respond to the dozens of worried texts Ned had sent him, just to have someone to talk to. When he prayed that May would come home from work early, just so he didn’t have to sit alone in silence and listen to the clock tick in the kitchen. When he needed to walk around Queens for hours and hours just to keep himself out of the flashbacks.

_ Peter, yelling at Ben to leave him alone and give him some space.  _

_ The prickle of danger at the back of his neck, which he stupidly ignored, still unused to his new abilities.  _

_ One mugger, two gunshots. That was all it had taken.  _

_ Ben, gasping for air, choking on blood, his chest heaving, his eyes blindly seeking Peter’s face to the very last. _

“I want to be better,” Peter croaked. He wanted to scream until his throat was raw. How could somebody hold this much grief inside of them? “I don’t want you to hate me. I want to make you proud. I swear.”

He tried to think of what Ben might say in response to this if he was still here, but he couldn’t. Ben would be compassionate and loving, like always, but he didn’t deserve that anymore. 

He checked his watch.  _ 12:17 AM.  _ “Merry Christmas, Ben,” he whispered. 

He sat up straighter all of a sudden, danger prickling at the back of his neck. This was just another fun effect from the spider bite he’d gotten back in September. 

So far, freshman year sucked. 

He sighed and dragged himself to his feet, knowing from painful experience that his newly heightened senses would try to hone in on the source of danger, and he would end up with a splitting migraine unless he either investigated or simply removed himself from the area. He opted for the latter, brushing the snow off his knees and trailing his fingers over Ben’s headstone one final time. He had just turned to trudge back in the direction of the apartment when he heard the distant hum of repulsors. 

His curiosity was a curse sometimes—it was what had gotten him bitten by that Oscorp spider in the first place, after all—but he couldn’t help but turn around towards the source of the noise and cock his head so he could listen better. 

His mouth fell open in shock when he saw a familiar silhouette soaring above the graveyard. 

_ Iron Man had just flown past him! _

“No fucking way,” he breathed. Before he could second-guess his decision, he took off after the metallic suit, running at a speed that he knew was risky. If any non-enhanced people happened to be out at 10 PM on Christmas Eve, they’d get an eyeful of a kid running way faster than was humanly possible. 

But how could he stay away? He’d been Tony Stark’s biggest fan since he was eight. 

Fortunately, the streets were empty, but Iron Man noticed him.  _ Iron Man noticed him!  _

“Get out of here,” a sharp voice called from the sky. “Alien weapons three blocks ahead. The last thing I need is some nosy little kid putting himself in danger.”

_ I can help you, Mr. Stark, sir!  _ Peter wanted to call.  _ I have powers!  _

Even as he thought it, he knew how ridiculous it was.  _ You couldn’t save your uncle. What makes you think you could handle alien weapons?  _

Peter sighed and obediently slowed to a halt. Iron Man didn’t spare him a second glance, shooting down the street and leaving Peter in the dust. Peter waited a minute and then broke into a run again. He wouldn’t insert himself into the fight and try to protect anybody else, but he could fend for himself if it came to that. And there was no way he was going to miss an opportunity to see Iron Man in action again! The Stark Expo had been one of the best days of his life, even though he had almost died. 

He ducked into an alleyway, listening carefully. He used his strange stickiness to scale the side of a three-story building, scrambling onto the roof and peering down at the street below. He watched with excitement as Iron Man blasted the door to a tall, imposing bank open. He felt his throat tighten, however, when he heard screaming from inside the bank, and he berated himself. Someone in there, probably some poor old security guard, was having the worst night of his life, and here Peter was, cheering on the sidelines. 

He heard a strange sound, like a deep hum coupled with static electricity, and then there was an explosion of purple light.  _ The alien weapons,  _ he supposed. He hoped Iron Man was okay in there. Where were Captain America and the other Avengers?

Peter watched with growing unease as a balding, middle-aged man in a security guard uniform hobbled out of the bank, terror written on every line of his face. 

The man staggered down the steps and collapsed to the ground. He tried to struggle to his feet again, but he flopped uselessly back down, clutching his right knee in agony. Even in the darkness, Peter could see blood dripping from either a gunshot or a stab wound.

Peter knew without a doubt that Ben’s influence guided him through his next actions. It almost felt like Ben was standing next to him, saying, “You know what to do, so do it, buddy. With great power comes great responsibility.”

Ben was the kind of person who had a sandwich or a few dollars for every homeless person he passed. Over the years, Peter had watched his uncle break up fights in the park, mail lost wallets back to their owners, and feed countless expired parking meters with spare change. 

So he didn’t think twice before crawling back down the side of the building and sprinting across the street to the man’s side. Maybe he couldn’t trust himself against alien weapons yet, but here was something he could do. Someone he could help. Maybe this man had kids or a wife who were eagerly waiting for him to come home so they could celebrate Christmas.

He pulled his hood up, just in case there were security cameras somewhere. The last thing he needed was for May to turn on the news in the hospital break room and see her nephew getting mixed up in bank robberies and alien technology. 

“Hey, sir,” Peter called, kneeling down next to the man. He was wearing a chipped name badge that said ‘Javier.’ “I’m going to get you out of here, okay, Javier? I hear sirens, which means the police are near, but we can’t sit and wait around.”

He winced as another burst of purple energy rocked the foundations of every building in a two-block radius. A gargoyle cracked off the facade of the bank and plummeted towards the man. 

“Oh, shit,” Peter said in a surprised tone, reaching out and nimbly plucking the gargoyle out of the air before it could make contact with Javier’s head. It felt as easy as catching an inflated beach ball. 

The man gaped at him. “I’m—I’m hallucinating. That thing is solid marble. And you—you just caught it.”

Peter hastily changed the subject, grabbing the man and scooping him effortlessly into a bridal carry. “Er—we gotta go.”

“Are you here with Iron Man?” Javier asked dazedly. 

_ I wish,  _ Peter thought to himself as he ran in the direction of the approaching sirens. “Uh, no. Not an Avenger. Just a...gym rat. Yeah. I lift.”

It was probably the douchiest thing that had ever come out of Peter’s mouth. Fortunately, Javier was so out of it that he didn’t seem to notice. Unfortunately, that probably meant he was going into shock. Peter wracked his brain, trying to remember what they’d learned about shock in 7th grade health class. 

When the ambulance and police were only about a block away, Peter lowered Javier to the ground, gently sitting him against the wall of a grocery store, propping his injured leg up on an empty vegetable crate. 

“Help!” He shouted, making sure his hood was covering as much of his face as possible. Two paramedics ran over with a backboard. 

“This guy is the security guard from the bank. I think he escaped and limped over here. I just found him on the ground here a minute ago,” Peter shrugged, trying to appear like a clueless bystander.

“Thanks, kid, now get out of here,” one of the paramedics grunted, grabbing Javier’s wrist to take a pulse. 

Peter backed away, trying not to think about the night Ben had died, how the red and blue lights had flickered eerily over Ben’s still face. But Javier wasn’t dying, he reminded himself. Javier was going to be fine. Because Peter had helped him. He hadn’t frozen or faltered. He’d used his strength and gotten Javier to safety. 

A SWAT team rushed past him, on the way to help Mr. Stark apprehend the criminals and their alien weapons. Normally, Peter would be dying to watch the fight, but tonight, nothing was further from his mind. He walked home in a daze, mulling over the sudden idea that had occurred to him when he’d first spotted Javier from his rooftop vantage point. 

He could do this again. He could use his powers to help people. Not like Mr. Stark. Not yet, anyway. Maybe someday. But for now, he could look out for the Javiers out there. The little guys, who got caught in things like muggings and robberies and drug deals gone bad just because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time. 

He climbed through his bedroom window, listening to make sure that May wasn’t home yet. He flung his dresser drawers open, digging around until he found an old red hoodie. 

“This’ll have to do for now,” he mumbled to himself. He’d been dreading this moment—sitting in the apartment alone on Christmas and missing Ben—but he suddenly found that it wasn’t so bad. In fact, he even found himself smiling slightly as he pulled out his project notebook and began to draw schematics, slipping into the familiar comfort of math and science. He needed an outfit, a way to propel himself from building to building, a greater knowledge of first aid, and more. 

He had a lot of planning to do if he wanted to use his powers to honor Ben’s memory. 


	2. 2016

ii. 2016

“Please pick up, please pick up,” Peter chanted under his breath. 

“Hi, it’s Ned. If you’re hearing this, then it’s finally happened. I’ve hacked into the HYDRA servers and been placed into the Witness Protection Program by SHIELD. Leave a message at the beep, and I’ll get back to you, unless it compromises my mission—”

Peter groaned and hung up. Ned’s family usually went to Boston to visit extended family for Christmas, but it had been worth a try. He took a deep breath and forced himself to look down. Yep, there was still a knife sticking out of his side. No, it didn’t hurt any less. 

To make matters infinitely worse, his phone lit up with a new call—this time from Mr. Stark. 

“Shit,” he hissed, jabbing his finger rapidly against the decline button. He’d taken off his suit as soon as he’d been stabbed, in hopes that it would stop Karen from alerting Mr. Stark. Peter had barely gotten the man to respect him after the Homecoming incident in October; the last thing he needed was to ruin Mr. Stark’s Christmas Eve. He was probably hosting some kind of swanky Christmas party, sipping champagne with celebrities.

Peter gritted his teeth, reaching down and tentatively grasping the hilt of the knife. He wiggled it slightly, testing it. His vision instantly blanked out from a jolt of sharp, white-hot agony. He needed to get the knife out, though, or his healing would start trying to close his skin around the blade. He’d learned this the hard way last month when he’d tumbled through the window of an old warehouse and gotten glass embedded in his knee. 

“Okay, Spider-Man,” he murmured to himself. “You got this. You can do this.” He pictured himself lifting the fallen building off his shoulders after the Vulture had knocked the support beams out. 

He closed his eyes, taking deep, centering breaths. _Just do it, and then your healing will fix everything. Just do it._

It sure would be a lot easier to concentrate if Mr. Stark would stop calling him. 

He hit the decline button again and yanked the knife out before he could overthink it. 

“Ohmygod,” he exhaled shakily, crumpling to his knees gracelessly. “Wow, okay,” he choked, his breath hitching. 

The ground was—it was moving. It was coming closer to his face. His cheek thumped against the snow and that was the last thing he knew. 

***

“Five more minutes,” he groaned, fumbling around and trying to find his alarm clock. His bedroom sure was cold right now. 

“Shut up,” he muttered vindictively, searching for the source of the repetitive buzzing. His fingers made contact with his phone, which was humming angrily next to him. 

He swiped right without looking, hoping that would make the alarm turn off. Instead, it just made the buzzing noise change into a sharp voice. 

“...kid? You better answer me right now—”

Peter jerked upright, gasping and shuddering when an unexpected wave of pain swept over him. He looked down. The snow where he had been laying was bright red. 

“That’s...not good,” he said softly. 

“What? Speak up, kid,” the voice demanded. 

Peter scrambled to organize his thoughts into something coherent. “Oh, uh, hi, Mr. Stark,” he said quickly. “I, uh...just got home from patrol. Did you need something?”

He pressed shaking fingers to his side, feeling his stomach clench queasily when his hand came back covered in blood. 

“Oh, really?” Mr. Stark said, something dangerous in his tone. It sounded windy wherever Mr. Stark was. “I didn’t know you were living in an alley behind a Chinese restaurant nowadays.”

“Are—are you tracking my phone?” Peter asked. 

“Always? No. Right now? Yes,” Mr. Stark said flatly. 

There was a lot to unpack there, but Peter was too busy trying not to faint again. “Oh, well—it’s a Christmas tradition. There’s, um, a really nice view of some Christmas lights in this alleyway.” He looked around the alley. There was an unopened fortune cookie near his left foot and a stack of empty cardboard boxes across from him that looked kind of like a minimalist snowman, if you squinted and tilted your head slightly to the left. 

“Okay, Spider-Boy, and would this ‘Christmas tradition’ have anything to do with the fact that the Baby Monitor Protocol recorded you fighting two men with knives half an hour ago?”

“No, definitely not.”

“Parker,” Mr. Stark said, exasperation clear in his voice. “Your vitals spiked, and then you went offline. I’m six minutes out. If I get there and find that you’ve taken the suit off to try and hide an injury—”

“Wait,” Peter interrupted, heart rate ticking up nervously. “You’re coming here? _Now?”_

“In five minutes and 12 seconds...11 seconds...10 seconds…”

“Okay, okay, I get it! Look, I’ll put the suit back on if you want me to, but...there’s kind of, uh, a lot of blood? Not sure how washable the suit’s fabric is—I mean, I could try to wash it on the gentle cycle when I get home—”

“That’s— _do not_ put the multimillion dollar supersuit into the washing machine. You know what—just stay put. Do not move. Got that, Spider-Kid?”

Peter nodded weakly, before remembering that Mr. Stark couldn’t see him. Everything was starting to feel kind of hazy. He was lightheaded, for one, and freezing cold for another, dressed in just a lightweight t-shirt and shorts, chosen because they fit well under his suit. 

“Underoos? Answer me.”

Peter moved his mouth but no sound came out. He coughed and tried again. 

“Peter!” Mr. Stark barked, startling him out of the fog he’d been slipping into. 

“‘M here, Mr. Stark,” he managed to mumble. 

“Just...hang on, kid, okay? I’ll be there in less than two minutes. FRI, divert as much power to the thrusters as you can.”

Peter faded out again then, praying that Mr. Stark wouldn’t be so angry that he took the suit away from him again. 

***

Everything happened in brief flashes of coherency from that point onward. It reminded him of when he’d gotten heatstroke on a camping trip with Ned’s family a few years ago—the odd expanses of missing time, the spinning, drunk feeling in his stomach. 

He gasped and raised his fists defensively when Mr. Stark landed next to him, letting out a laugh when he remembered how he’d done the exact same thing when Mr. Stark found him on the ground at the airport in Germany. 

Mr. Stark didn’t seem to find it funny. His face was pinched and his hair was untidy and he was wearing glasses—like, real glasses with clear lenses, which was also kind of funny. He probed Peter’s side with his fingers, and Peter’s laughter immediately turned into a low groan, and the scene melted around him. 

***

Next, he was slumped on a wooden chair in an unfamiliar kitchen. The room was warm, and Peter wanted to curl up and sleep for twelve hours. He almost nodded off again, but then Mr. Stark pressed a wet cloth to his side. The disinfectant was cold and it made his stab wound burn and sear with sudden pain. 

“‘M sorry, Mr. Stark,” Peter slurred, jerking back to semi-awareness, his heart twisting with worry in his chest. “Please—please. Don’t...don’t take the suit again. I’m sorry.”

He’d only had the suit back for two months; he couldn’t lose it again now! People were starting to know him in the streets. He had saved a woman’s life tonight. 

Mr. Stark shook his head, rummaging through a medical kit. “We’ll talk about it later.”

“I’m sorry for ruining your Christmas!” Peter babbled urgently, unable to let the matter rest. “They had knives...she was just trying to get to her car. Please, I’ll do better, I promise,” he pleaded. 

“Kid,” Mr. Stark said firmly. “It’s fine. We’ll talk about it later, but you need some stitches right now, okay? I’m going to give you a dose of Cap’s painkillers, and then you’re going to sleep it off.”

“May—Don’t tell May!” Peter remembered suddenly. He grabbed Mr. Stark’s sleeve, desperate. “Please, Mr. Stark, she’s only just started accepting the idea of me being Spider-Man.” 

Mr. Stark rolled his eyes, but he looked down at Peter’s white-knuckled fingers, tangled against the deep maroon fabric of his sweatshirt, and his expression softened slightly. 

“I’m not going to lie to your aunt about you getting injured,” he said. “But I can...deliver the prognosis gently, just this once. Is she at home right now?” He asked, sighing and pulling his phone out of his pocket. 

Peter glanced at the clock over the oven. It was just after 10 P.M. “No, she’s working a double-shift. She won’t be home until 7 AM.”

Mr. Stark nodded. Peter’s super hearing easily picked up the ringing sound, followed by May’s familiar voicemail message. 

“Hi, Mrs. Parker,” Mr. Stark said, and it was strange to hear how he switched from Peter’s exasperated kind-of mentor to the polished, suave media-friendly Mr. Stark. “This is Tony Stark. Listen, Peter got a cut on his side during patrol earlier. It’s healing up just fine, but he tore his suit, so he came by Stark Tower. We’re probably going to be up really late repairing it, so...if it’s okay with you, I’ll bring him home tomorrow morning, maybe around 9 or so.”

“I larb you, May!” Peter called cheerfully, knowing his aunt would feel reassured if she heard him in the background. “Get home safe.”

Mr. Stark ended the call. “There. Happy?” He raised one eyebrow sardonically. 

Peter nodded fervently, slumping with relief and exhaustion. “Thank you, seriously.”

“I’m not doing that again—your aunt deserves to know this stuff. Consider this your Christmas gift.”

“I’m sorry,” Peter said softly, picking at a thread on his shorts. “It’s just...I’m all she has left. She worries.”

Mr. Stark hesitated, and then he laid his hand on Peter’s shoulder for a second, squeezing once before removing it and handing Peter a small red pill and a water bottle. 

“Take that now. It should only take a few minutes to kick in,” Mr. Stark instructed, busying himself by assembling the supplies for stitches. 

Peter obediently swallowed the pill, and then he leaned back in the chair, taking in his surroundings for the first time. He was in a sleek, spotless kitchen that was probably bigger than his and May’s entire apartment. Beyond the kitchen, he caught a glimpse of floor to ceiling windows with a stunning view of the city below. A fire crackled in a large stone hearth, and soft Christmas music drifted from the large flatscreen TV. 

“Is this your penthouse?” Peter asked curiously. 

“Yeah. Sold the Tower, but Pep wanted to keep the penthouse.”

“Oh, is Ms. Potts here?” Peter asked, his earlier anxiety returning. “You guys must have been celebrating. I’m so sorry, I can get out of your hair as soon as you finish the stitches.”

“Are you kidding me, kid? Those painkillers you just took could knock out a grizzly bear. No way are you swinging home tonight.”

“I don’t want to inconvenience you or anything, Mr. Stark. I’ll crash on the couch and you can go back to your party with Ms. Potts.”

Mr. Stark looked at him, puzzled. “Pepper is in Shanghai for business until the 28th. And what party, kid? Do I look like I’m dressed for a party?” He indicated his glasses and comfortable clothes. “I don’t know,” Peter shrugged. “It’s Christmas Eve. I figured you and Ms. Potts would be, like, drinking champagne with the Obamas or something.”

“No, Barack and Michelle were taking the girls to Hawaii for the holidays this year.”

Peter stared. “Are you actually friends with Obama?!” He asked. 

Mr. Stark grinned and tapped him on the knee. “That’s classified, kid.”

Peter was quiet then. He could feel that the painkillers were starting to kick in, but there was a thought that he didn’t want to let go of.

Pepper was in China, and he couldn’t hear any other heartbeats in the penthouse or on any of the floors immediately below this one. He noticed oil stains on Mr. Stark’s jeans and he came to the conclusion that Mr. Stark had been spending his Christmas Eve alone, just like Peter. 

It was kind of sad, now that he thought about it. Mr. Rhodes worked out of Washington, D.C. and Vision lived at the compound. T’Challa was in Wakanda. All of Mr. Stark’s other close friends had betrayed him and left six months ago after the fight in Germany. 

Peter opened his mouth to say something like “I’m alone too,” but his mouth didn’t work anymore, and he could feel himself listing heavily in his seat. The last thing he remembered was a low voice muttering, “Easy there, Pete,” and then there were strong hands propping him up and leaning him against the heavy wooden table. 

***

Peter was floating and walking at the same time. It was weird. He could feel his feet touching a plush carpeted floor, but his head was drifting miles above the clouds. 

He blinked heavy eyelids. It was dark outside, and he could see big windows, a comfortable looking couch, and a TV. There was a beautiful Christmas tree tucked into the corner of the room with red and gold lights. Someone was guiding him through the room, grabbing his elbow when one of his legs buckled weirdly for a second. 

“Jeez, Spider-Kid, you’re worse than Bambi over here,” an amused voice said near his side. 

They were in front of a door now, and he was being guided over to a bed. 

“Sleep it off, and you should feel good as new by morning,” the voice continued, pulling the blankets back for him. 

Peter rolled clumsily onto the bed, instinctively avoiding his left side, where he could feel a thick swath of bandaging. Had he been hurt earlier? He couldn’t remember. He blinked again. The door to the bedroom was open, and he could see the soft glow of the Christmas tree and hear a piano version of “The First Noel” playing softly. 

“‘S Christmas Eve, right, Ben?” He mumbled into a luxurious pillow. 

There was a moment of silence. “It’s Tony, kid. But yeah, it’s Christmas Eve.”

“Oh. Cool. G’night, Mr. Stark.”

“Good night, kid,” Mr. Stark echoed. Peter dimly felt Mr. Stark pull the blankets over him. It was kind of awkward, like Mr. Stark wasn’t sure how to cover him. Peter grinned dazedly into his pillow. He hoped he remembered all of this tomorrow so that he could tell Ned about it. 

***

Peter fidgeted uncomfortably in the front seat of Mr. Stark’s Audi. He’d woken up with a mostly-healed gash on his side and several questions about his humiliating behavior the night before. 

He cringed thinking of how Mr. Stark had needed to come and rescue him from that alley. He’d been doing so well at staying out of Mr. Stark’s hair since the Homecoming incident, but he’d ruined it all. And then, to make matters worse, he’d gotten high on pain meds, stumbled around, and he was pretty sure he’d called Mr. Stark by his uncle’s name. 

“Cut it out with all the movement, kid, you’re giving me heartburn over there,” Mr. Stark said. 

“Are you sure that’s not the McDonalds?” 

“Hey, watch it, or I’m taking the last sausage McMuffin.”

Peter let out and undignified squawk and protectively grabbed the bag of food. 

“By the way, if Pep asks, you did not see me eat McDonalds.”

Even though he was still embarrassed about the previous night, Peter couldn’t help but feel his dark mood fading. 

“You do realize that you’ve just handed me perfect blackmail material,” Peter pointed out, quickly snapping a picture of Mr. Stark holding a hash brown. He sent it to Ned with the caption _“Merry Chrysler!”_

“Unbelievable,” Mr. Stark shook his head. “You give a kid a multi-million dollar suit and this is how he repays you.”

Peter straightened at the mention of the suit. “Oh, man, Mr. Stark. I’m really sorry about the hole in the suit. Um...if you let me intern in your labs, I can probably pay you back for the damages in like...ten years?”

Mr. Stark rolled his eyes. “Right. About the suit. Congratulations, your stunt last night earned you two new rules—”

Peter brightened. “New rules?” He interjected. “Does that mean I get to keep the suit?”

Mr. Stark didn’t meet his eyes as he pulled up to a red light. “Look...I know some of this is my fault, kid. I took the suit away from you, and you’re still afraid to tell me when you get hurt because of that. But I’m not going to take the suit away again, okay? It’s safer if you have it.”

Peter blinked, startled. “Oh...it’s really not your fault, Mr. Stark. I’m just—”

“—traumatized because I took your suit away from you and then you had to fight several criminals dressed in pajamas? Yeah, that sounds about right.”

“They weren’t pajamas and it wasn’t that bad,” Peter lied, trying not to think of all his nightmares of buildings collapsing on him. 

“Whatever helps you sleep at night,” Mr. Stark said, a little too knowingly. 

“What are the rules?” He asked, trying to change the subject. 

“Right. First of all, no more weekly update via Happy’s voicemail. I want a text message from you every single time you finish patrolling. Within five minutes of taking off your suit, you need to text me that you are safe. And if you don’t, I’m going to assume that you’re dying in an alleyway somewhere and I’m going to show up in a suit. No more taking off the suit to avoid Karen tracking your vitals, understood?”

“Yes, sir,” Peter sighed. He supposed it was pretty reasonable. And it was kind of cool that he had an excuse to text Mr. Stark now, even if it was for a very specific purpose. 

Mr. Stark’s hand tightened slightly on the steering wheel. “Don’t call me ‘sir.’ I’m not my father, kid. Breaking the cycle of shame and all of that, remember?”

“Okay,” Peter shrugged. “What’s the other rule?”

“You come by the lab once a week for a few hours. I’ll teach you how to mend the suit during our first meeting. But beyond that, we need to figure out painkillers for you. And I want to understand your healing better. And I’m sure you have ideas for suit upgrades.”

“Umm,” Peter gaped. “What. That is not a rule. That is literally every childhood dream of mine coming true.” He winced, realizing how embarrassing he sounded. “I mean...because your lab is so amazing and well-stocked.” It had nothing to do with how he’d done his 6th grade biography project on Tony Stark or dressed up as Iron Man for Halloween three years in a row. 

“Sure, kid. Anyway, here’s your stop.” He pulled to a stop in front of Peter’s apartment building. 

“Do you want to come inside?” Peter asked, awkwardly scratching his neck. He hated the idea of Mr. Stark being alone on Christmas, but he didn’t think May would love to have the guy around for the day. She hadn’t quite forgiven him for taking Peter to Germany yet. 

“I have to go to the airport and pick Rhodey up. He’s visiting for a few days,” Mr. Stark explained. “But thanks. And tell Aunt Hottie I say hi.”

Peter rolled his eyes. “I’m telling her you called her that.”

“Hey, she holds sway over your superhero career, not mine, kid.”

Peter undid his seatbelt and grabbed his soda. “Merry Christmas, Mr. Stark,” He said. “And...thanks for your help last night.” This was normally the point at which he’d go in for a hug, but his last attempt had ended disastrously, and he wasn’t about to humiliate himself twice in two days, so he extricated himself from the car. 

“Merry Christmas, kid,” Mr. Stark said. “See you next week.” Then he zipped off and around the corner. 

Peter grinned to himself and headed inside, a spring in his step.


	3. 2017

iii. 2017

Getting kidnapped a few days before Christmas was classic Parker Luck.

“Fuck you!” He shouted as he punched several evil henchmen. “Do you know how hard I worked on finals?!”

“If you surrender peacefully, we do not need to fight,” one of the henchmen, the biggest and the dumbest, advised him.

“I didn’t suffer through two weeks of exams and group projects just to get kidnapped the second day of winter break! So you can fuck right off.”

“Peter, per my Spidernapped protocol, I have contacted Mr. Stark. He is now on his way and will be here in three minutes,” Karen said calmly in his ear.

“No! Tell him not to come. I’ve got it—” One of the men managed to slip past defenses and bodily pick him up and slam him against the nearby brick wall. “—under control,” he choked, wrapping a protective arm around his aching ribs.

Then a fist slammed into his face, and everything went black.

***

When Peter awoke, it was to a cold and inky darkness. He sat up dizzily, wondering if the heat in the apartment had stopped working again. The last time that had happened, he and Ben and May had created a giant blanket fort in the living room, and they’d spent the night snuggling together and watching movies until maintenance could fix the problem.

But then he noticed that he was not at the apartment. Instead of the familiar sounds of the kitchen clock and May tiptoeing to her room after a late shift, he heard dripping water and an uneven heartbeat.

 _The alleyway!_ Memories came flooding back in, and with them, there was pain. _Everything_ hurt. It reminded him of before he’d gotten his powers, when he’d woken up the day after they had to run two miles in gym class, and he discovered aches in muscles he never knew existed.

He shifted slightly, testing to see if he could pinpoint specific injuries. The ribs on his right side screamed with any movement, and he could feel warmth under his nose that he was pretty certain was blood. He tested the handcuffs on his wrists and found that he couldn’t break them.

 _Vibranium._ Somebody knew what they were doing. His suit was gone, and he was left in a thin t-shirt and shorts.

He staggered to his feet, looking around. His vision had adjusted to the darkness, and he could see that he was in a cell. There was somebody else here with him, if the other heartbeat was anything to go by.

“Please, no,” he whispered when he realized that the heartbeat was familiar. “No, you weren’t supposed to come.”

Sure enough, when he turned around, he saw Mr. Stark slumped on the other side of the cell.

***

He tried to wake Mr. Stark up, but it didn’t work. He could only assume that they’d both been drugged, and that Peter’s metabolism had quickly burned through whatever they’d been given.

He searched for vulnerabilities and weaknesses in the cell door and walls but found nothing. Then he collapsed next to Mr. Stark’s side—for warmth, not for comfort, of course—and anxiously chewed on his nails.

According to his internal clock, it was about six hours later when two men came in.

Peter recognized them both from the alley fight.

“Let him go,” Peter begged instantly. “He has nothing to do with this.”

They said nothing in response. One of the men began to take pictures of Peter, and Peter’s stomach sunk. From the beginning, he’d had a bad feeling about this. When he’d been fighting the men, he’d noticed that they were all wearing matching black tactical outfits. Whenever he shot webs at them, the webs didn’t adhere to their clothes. He hadn’t had time to consider it much amid trying to protect himself, but fabric like that must have cost millions of dollars. Way more than any normal street criminal had access to.

There had been whispers floating around that somebody was kidnapping enhanced individuals off the streets of New York City and selling them to the highest bidder—for experimentation, for forced servitude, for whatever nefarious purposes someone with enough money could dream up.

Peter had a feeling that he’d stumbled into the source of the kidnapping rumors.

***

It took a few more hours for Mr. Stark to wake up. By that point, Peter had eaten his half of the can of soup and drank his half of the water bottle they’d been given.

“Pete?” Mr. Stark mumbled, blinking slowly. He fumbled around with his cuffed hands, trying to find Peter, his motions oddly clumsy from the drugs.

“I’m here,” Peter said, leaning his shoulder against Mr. Stark’s. “But I’m pissed at you.”

It took Mr. Stark a moment to work through what Peter had said and respond. “Nope. No. You don’t get to tell me not to come and help you. That’s non-negotiable.”

“They’re going to kill you, Mr. Stark,” he whispered desperately, hoping that whatever cameras and microphones they had in here wouldn’t pick up his words. “They’re the ones selling enhanced people. They’re going to use you to get me to cooperate, and then kill you when you’ve served your purpose.”

He felt tears burn in his eyes when he said the words out loud. He’d been thinking them for hours, but to put them out there made it more real.

“We’ll figure something out, bud. Pep knew I was coming out to save you. When I didn’t come back, she would’ve alerted Rhodey. And this isn’t my first kidnapping rodeo.” Mr. Stark seemed to be growing more coherent by the moment, which was an encouraging sign.

He stretched, wincing in the darkness when he looked at Peter.

“Jeez, kid, you look rough.”

“They have some kind of material that’s impervious to my webs.”

“I know. They had a signal jammer that took FRIDAY offline as soon as I landed in that alley. I think we found our new projects for lab time when we get back to the land of the living.”

“They’re going to kill you,” Peter repeated, wrapping his shaking arms around his legs. He closed his eyes tight, trying not to throw up all the soup he’d just eaten. “How can you be so calm?”

“Because we need to be calm so we can plan how to get out of here. Look, last resort, you use your strength to break my handcuffs, and we’ll fight our way out of here.”

“That would probably break both of your wrists.”

“It’s not ideal, but it _is_ an option. Remember that if you ever get kidnapped again. Always have at least one final option in your back pocket.”

Peter sighed. “May is going to murder both of us.”

“She’ll have to get in line behind Pepper for my murder, I’m sure.”

Peter’s eyelids were beginning to grow heavier. Now that Mr. Stark was awake, the situation didn’t seem so scary and overwhelming.

Naturally, as soon as he thought that, the door to the cell opened. Peter flinched at the light that spilled in from the hallway. He and Mr. Stark moved at the exact same time, both of them trying to slide in front to protect each other.

“Stand aside, Stark,” one of the men grunted. When Mr. Stark didn’t back down, the man kicked him, hard.

“No!” Peter shouted. “Leave him alone. I’m cooperating.”

He allowed himself to be dragged out of the cell, his terror growing with every foot of distance between himself and Mr. Stark. Would they kill him as soon as they sold Peter? Would he get a chance to return to his cell?

***

Every day, they dragged him from the cell, kicking and punching Mr. Stark when he tried to protect Peter. They brought him to a large room and forced him to fight against other enhanced individuals. The room was lined with tinted windows, and he could see shadowy figures on the other side of the glass, watching, calculating. Bidding, perhaps.

The only bright spot was that the captors didn’t want any of their captives to kill each other, because they could only make a profit off of selling live enhanced people. Peter had fought two men the first day, and they’d both pulled their punches by silent agreement. The second day, he’d been tossed into the room with a girl who couldn’t have been older than 15. She’d been shaking like a leaf, and Peter, horrified, hadn’t landed a single punch, letting her beat him tentatively to submission, her expression wide-eyed and apologetic. The captors could tell that he hadn’t fought her properly, and they’d beat him again before returning him to his cell.

Today, perhaps as punishment, it had been some guy who had the ability to transform into a giant rock monster. The man had seemed genuinely unhinged, and he hadn’t held back. Peter hadn’t fared well, after days of beatings and little food.

Mr. Stark was pacing their cell furiously when Peter was manhandled back inside.

“Be gentle, you fucking idiots! You’re going to kill him!” He hissed at the guards, who ignored him, slamming the door shut with smug superiority.

“Pete,” he breathed, his voice tight and afraid like it was every time he returned from a fight, skimming over Peter’s limbs as best as he could manage with cuffed hands. Peter let out a pained whimper when Mr. Stark touched his shoulder.

“We’ve gotta get you out of here soon, kiddo,” Mr. Stark said, easing him into the corner where he normally curled up with Mr. Stark’s jacket as his pillow. They’d been waiting for an opportunity to arise—for someone to forget to tighten Peter’s cuffs after he fought, for a guard to be careless with opening the door. But these people were experienced, and they knew what they were doing.

“I miss May,” Peter whispered. To his horror, one tear slipped down his cheek, followed by another.

Strong arms were lifting him then, and he was tucked against Mr. Stark’s side, his head pillowed against Mr. Stark’s shoulder. He would normally be embarrassed by needing to be held and comforted like a little kid, but he allowed himself to relax for the first time since he’d landed in the alleyway four days ago. Mr. Stark still smelled like himself, and he listened to the familiar heartbeat until he fell asleep, tears still wet on his face. 

***

Another day, another fight. The worst part of being kidnapped was how much time it gave you to think.

Today, Peter was thinking about Parker Luck when he leaned his head against Mr. Stark’ shoulder after his fight. As always, he felt a strange mixture of happiness and terror when he contemplated how his relationship with Mr. Stark had blossomed from a reluctant mentor to…whatever he was now. Peter was afraid to put words to it. Mr. Stark was…he was kind of like Ben. And like Richard. Strong. Safe. Dependable. Fun.

But that didn’t mean he was like Peter’s _dad_ or anything. First of all, Mr. Stark was always going on about how terrible his own father had been. He was pretty sure Tony had no desire to be a parent. And if he _did_ want to be a parent, he could have his own kids with Ms. Potts someday.

Second of all, Peter had Parker Luck to worry about.

He had taken statistics last year, and he understood how probability worked. The odds of him losing both his parents in a plane accident had been extremely low. When that happened, it should have theoretically lowered the odds of any other inexplicable tragedies occurring in his life. 

And then Ben had died. 

Peter had been foolish. He’d assumed that things like life and death were bounded by a simple mathematical formula. He’d believed that the worst had already happened. He’d gotten too comfortable, and he’d accepted that both Ben and May would always be around to take care of him. 

He didn’t want to make that mistake again with Mr. Stark.

But somehow Mr. Stark had become an integral part of his life over the past two years. Peter had his own bedroom in the Tower’s penthouse and at the compound, because his lab days often turned into movie nights. He texted with Mr. Stark almost every day, even when it had nothing to do with Spider-Man. He'd even brought Ben's broken old camera to the lab a few weeks ago and they'd been working on fixing it together. 

He felt guilty. With every step he took towards Mr. Stark, the Parker Luck target on Mr. Stark’s back grew. This whole experience was further proof of that fact. They were going to kill Mr. Stark as soon as they had a buyer for Peter.

As if sensing the dark tone of Peter’s ruminations, Mr. Stark interrupted him then.

“Hey, Pete. How was that history final? Did you get the essay question about the French Revolution?”

Finals felt like a lifetime ago, and he was dizzy from hunger. “No,” he said slowly. “My class got the one about the Napoleonic Wars.”

History was Peter’s worst subject, and Mr. Stark had helped him study during his last lab day. They’d annoyed Pepper by running around the penthouse, reenacting the Tennis Court Oath and the storming of the Bastille in her office. It had been a great day.

“I’m sure you did well, anyway,” Mr. Stark assured him, passing him the water bottle.

 _You can’t die too,_ Peter thought to himself. _I need you._

***

“I think it’s Christmas Eve,” Mr. Stark said the next day as they shared their can of soup. Peter noticed that Mr. Stark was taking tiny bites, probably trying to make sure Peter got more than him. He tried to limit his own intake, but he was starving, especially with his advanced metabolism.

“I made you a present,” Peter murmured. He was sleepy all the time now. It probably had something to do with the cold and the hunger and his injuries.

“Really? You didn’t have to do that, kid.”

“I wanted to, Mr. Stark.”

It had seemed so embarrassing last week. He’d agonized over the gift for nearly a month. What could you buy a billionaire, anyway? Plus, his bank account only had $23 left in it after he’d bought a Lego set for Ned, earrings for May, a Downton Abbey mug for Happy, and a scarf for Ms. Potts. So he’d used his school’s maker space to build Mr. Stark a Christmas ornament. He’d started with a glass ball he’d removed from an old snow globe, and then he’d designed and 3D printed skyscrapers and small Spider-Man and Iron Man figurines, along with some tiny human figures. He’d carefully assembled the scene inside of the glass ball, Spider-Man and Iron Man flying over the city together, saving the people of New York. He’d even used string to make his webs.

Overall, he was pretty proud of his efforts, especially since he wasn’t very artistic by nature. May had loved it when he’d showed her. But he couldn’t tell if it was too childish and frivolous. Mr. Stark received millions of gifts from fans each year, and he could literally afford to buy himself anything he wanted. Why would he want a Christmas ornament that had been constructed out of an old glass ball and cheap plastic?

Now, none of that seemed important.

“It was an ornament.”

“Don’t say _was,_ Pete. You’re going to give it to me as soon as we get out of here.”

“I 3D printed it. Spider-Man and Iron Man saving New York.”

“That sounds awesome, kiddo. I can’t wait to see it. I have a gift for you too, but I’m not going to tell you what it is, because we _are_ going to get out of here soon, and I’ll give it to you then.”

“Did you know that this is the third time we’ve spent Christmas Eve together?”

“Really?” Mr. Stark sounded puzzled. “I remember last year. What happened the year before that?”

“I was in the cemetery. Visiting Ben.” Short sentences were easiest. “You flew by. Bank robbery with Chitauri tech. I saved a security guard. Decided to become Spider-Man.”

“Oh, Jesus,” Mr. Stark groaned. “Let’s agree that we’ll never tell that story to May. If she finds out that I inadvertently played a role in you becoming Spider-Man, on top of everything else—”

“Thanks for being a good mentor, Mr. Stark,” Peter whispered. His ribs hurt every time he breathed.

“No. No, Pete, you don’t get to talk like that. No goodbyes, okay? We’re going to get out of here.”

Peter hummed neutrally in response. Whatever happened, he was getting Mr. Stark out of here. He turned slightly so that his nose was pressed against Mr. Stark’s neck, giving himself this last moment of comfort and safety.

***

Some undetermined amount of time later, Peter stirred from his sleep. He could tell from Mr. Stark’s breathing that he was awake too.

“Ben used to help me set up the Christmas tree every year on Christmas Eve,” he said into the darkness. “I did it by myself both years since he died. This is the first time…”

He trailed off. There was a moment of silence, and then Mr. Stark’s hand was smoothing the hair off his forehead. It must have been uncomfortable with his handcuffs, but he didn’t stop.

“I used to cook with my mom every Christmas Eve. We’d make Italian food together. The authentic stuff. I had a whole book full of her handwritten recipes, but it was destroyed when my Malibu house got blown up.”

“Italian food sounds really good right now.”

Mr. Stark laughed. “I promise I’ll make you some as soon as we get out of here, okay, Underoos? Fortunately, I did memorize a few recipes over the years.”

Mr. Stark began reciting the steps to make pasta carbonara then, and the sound of his low voice lulled Peter back to sleep.

***

A few hours later, their captors returned. But this time, there were four of them instead of the usual two.

“Wake up, Mr. Stark,” he whispered, nudging his mentor. His spidey sense was screaming at him. “I think it’s happening.”

“Congrats, Little Spider,” one of them said. It was the big one, the guy who had tried to convince him to come peacefully with them the first night. “You’re going to begin your new life today with a new owner.”

“Yeah, no thanks,” Peter scoffed, jumping to his feet. He wobbled slightly, but he could feel adrenaline kicking in and keeping him upright.

They opened the cage, and Peter knew that this was their moment. It was now or never. He whirled around, using his innate sense of location, and kicked sharply downward, right through the chain that held Mr. Stark’s handcuffs together.

He heard a small cracking noise and winced, knowing he’d probably just broken one or both of Mr. Stark’s wrists.

“Thanks, kid,” Mr. Stark grunted, and then it was all-out warfare.

Peter didn’t have his webs or any mobility in his cuffed hands, but he still had his strength and agility.

He used his stickiness to adhere to the wall and then he leaped off it, kicking the first guard in the head. He landed near the second guy and used both of his fists to smash the man in the nose with a satisfying crunch.

He was just turning to see how Tony was faring with Guy #3 and Big Ringleader Guy when he heard the familiar click of a silencer being placed on a gun.

He whirled around, horrified to see that Guy #3 was holding a gun and pointing it at Mr. Stark. It was precisely what he’d feared—Peter had a new owner, so they needed to get rid of Mr. Stark.

And it was the exact same set-up as when Ben had died: two men, one gun, one of the most important people in his life in mortal peril, and Peter, paralyzed in the midst of it all.

 _No!_ He thought, remembering how he’d fallen to his knees in front of Ben’s grave in a silent cemetery. He thought of Ben’s kindness, how Ben had saved up to buy Peter his first Lego set when he was 8. He thought of Mr. Stark, gruff and inscrutable, but always, _always_ looking out for Peter’s safety.

He jumped in front of the gun without hesitating this time.

***

Peter had been grazed by a few bullets in the past year, but he’d never been shot at point-blank range. Everything seemed to go cold and silent. He staggered and his knees gave out.

His body was freezing, but there was an unfamiliar heat in his left shoulder growing and growing, becoming more uncomfortable as each second passed.

“—eter! Pete, can you hear me?”

Familiar hands were rolling him onto his side, ripping his t-shirt open at the neck.

Mr. Stark! But…he was still in danger!

Peter struggled to sit up and block Mr. Stark with his body.

“Easy, Pete, easy,” Mr. Stark said, easing him back to the ground. “We’re safe.”

They were? But Guy #3 had a gun just a second ago—

Guy #3 was sprawled out on the floor, unconscious, next to Guys #1 and 2.

“Wha’…what happened?” Peter managed to mumble.

“That guy over there knocked his friend out,” Mr. Stark said, and he sounded just as confused as Peter felt.

Big Ringleader Guy nodded at them both. “I’m undercover with S.H.I.E.L.D. We’re trying to shut this whole operation down. There’s a door down the stairs and across the hallway. The password is Alpha Beta 57. You have to clear out right now.”

“Will you be okay if you let us escape?” Peter asked.

Ringleader nodded. “Don’t you worry about me. It’s under control.”

“There’s…there’s a girl. She couldn’t have been older than…fifteen,” Peter managed to get out. Black spots were blossoming in front of his eyes.

“I’ve got her. Another S.H.I.E.L.D. agent is going to ‘buy’ her in a few days. She’s getting out of here.”

“She’s…going to be okay?” He slurred.

“Yes,” Mr. Stark said firmly near his ear. He was being lifted and moved quickly then. “She’s going to be okay, and so are you. Okay, bud? Hey—Pete! Stay with me! Just…”

Darkness washed over him like a warm, gentle wave, tugging him out to sea.

***

When Peter next awoke, he wasn’t quite awake. He could hear voices, and they both sounded familiar, so he went back to sleep.

The time after that, he couldn’t manage to lift his eyelids, but he could tell that Mr. Stark and May were sitting close by, talking in low, worried tones.

He listened, still drifting.

“…I feel horrible, May,” Mr. Stark was saying. He sounded exhausted. “You should’ve seen his face when he jumped in front of the bullet. Just calm acceptance, no sense of self-preservation. He should be worrying about Christmas presents and decathlon and that MOMA field trip he has coming up in a few weeks, not throwing himself into gunfire on my behalf.”

“You have to remember, Tony; he saw Ben die exactly like that.”

Tony was quiet for a moment. “I didn’t know he saw it happen.”

“Yeah, because he never talks about it,” May sighed. She sounded sad, and Peter felt guilty. He made her worry so much, but he never meant to!

May was saying more stuff then, but Peter faded out of the conversation for a bit, only returning again when he heard Mr. Stark’s voice.

“I feel like I let him down. I mean, we were there for days. Surely there was another way for us to make it out of there—”

“You did your best, Tony, and you both made it out of there alive. He’s going to be fine.”

“This is a weird role reversal, isn’t it?” Mr. Stark asked, letting out a wry laugh. “You comforting me about Peter being hurt.”

“Hey, he’s just as much your kid as he is my kid at this point.”

Peter was still having a hard time understanding what they were saying, but something about May’s statement made him want to smile sleepily.

“I’m—he’s not—it’s…”

“Yeah, sure. Deny it all you want, Mr. Tough Guy,” May laughed. “I think the only person you’re fooling is yourself. And probably Peter.”

Fooling Peter? He should probably remember this conversation so he could think about it later when he was back to normal…

But then someone pulled a blanket up over his shoulders, and the warmth was so nice and unexpected that he relaxed, boneless, slipping back to sleep in between one thought and the next.

***

When he finally woke up for real, it was just him and May in the compound’s Med Bay.

“Honey!” May exclaimed, tears of relief in her eyes as she gently embraced him. “I was so worried.”

“I’m sorry, May,” he whispered, clinging to her gratefully. “I really missed you.”

“I missed you, too, baby. How do you feel?”

“A little achy. Where’s Mr. Stark?”

“He’s fine, Peter. He left an hour ago to go debrief with S.H.I.E.L.D. about what happened. I’m sure he’ll be back in a few minutes, and he’ll be annoyed that he wasn’t here when you woke up.”

Peter relaxed into his pillows. As long as Mr. Stark was fine, he was happy.

There was a tray of food next to the bed and a wrapped package on his bedside table.

“Tony left that for you,” May explained. “It’s your Christmas gift.” She rolled her eyes. “I set a very specific price limit on what he could get you, so I hope he complied. Otherwise I’m revoking his visitation rights.”

“Huh?” Peter asked. “Visitation rights?”

May laughed and passed him the box. “Go on, open it, honey.”

Peter shrugged, wincing when he remembered that he’d had a bullet removed from his shoulder just a few hours prior.

He tore the paper, letting out a gasp when he saw what it was.

“Oh my god!” He shouted. “Look, May! It’s me and Ned—and we’re _Legos_!”

There was a note taped to the box.

 _Pete,_ it read.

_I know a guy at Lego. Figured you and your guy in the chair deserved your own licensed set. This is an extremely limited edition—you have the only version of this set in existence. If you keep up the good work, though, I’m sure you’ll have a whole line of Lego Spider-Man sets not too long from now._

The box showed Peter taking down Mr. Stark’s plane with Ned seated behind several computer monitors.

“This is so fucking cool!” He exclaimed, beaming at May, before immediately sobering.

“What’s wrong, honey?” May asked, concerned.

“Do you…does it bother you? Me being close to Mr. Stark?”

As always, May could read him like an open book. “Loving Tony doesn’t mean you love Ben or your dad any less,” she said gently.

Peter’s mouth dropped open. “ _Love_ —I don’t...I mean…” He stammered. 

May only laughed, patting him on the head and opening his jello container for him. “You two are ridiculous," she said. "You deserve each other.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'd love to hear what you thought! I couldn't quite get this chapter right, so I had to finagle with it for an extra day. Not sure if I love how it turned out, but here we are.


	4. 2022 (Interlude)

Interlude: 2022 (one time they didn’t spend Christmas together)

“So...an old man climbs down the chimney and puts presents under the tree for every kid? Isn’t that a security threat?” Morgan asked, squinting dubiously up Tony. They were decorating Christmas cookies, and she had a smudge of frosting on her cheek. The words “security threat” sounded odd in her three-year-old voice, but she’d grown up hearing about safety her whole life. 

“It’s...yes, normally that would be a security threat. We don’t let strangers into the house, remember, Morguna?”

“But we’re allowed to let this Santa Claus guy in the house.”

“Yeah, he’s magical. So he’s safe.” Tony couldn’t help but think that Santa Claus’ alleged existence delivered a lot of mixed messages to kids, but he wanted Morgan to have as much of a normal childhood as possible. 

Also, Howard had never allowed him to believe in Santa Claus, and he wasn’t going to do the same thing to his daughter. 

“Is magic real, Daddy?” Morgan asked eagerly, temporarily distracted. She was going through a major unicorn phase right now, and she kept trying to get Pepper and Tony to confirm if unicorns were real or not. 

“Yes, some types of magic are real,” Tony said, and as always, he felt a cold sweat break out on the back of his neck when he thought about Strange, his mind flashing back to Titan, an orange sky, Peter staggering into his arms and collapsing. 

“—Daddy?”

When Tony’s hearing phased back in, Morgan was looking up at him in concern. He hated himself for being so weak. She shouldn’t have to deal with her dad zoning out because of PTSD. She shouldn’t only be learning about Christmas for the first time when she was three years old. But it had been too painful, all the other years, to celebrate. Hell, it was _still_ too painful to celebrate, but that was how parenthood worked, Tony had learned. Sometimes, you endured your hurt quietly so that your child could be happy. 

“I’m sorry, Tony,” Pepper had murmured a few weeks ago when they were both close to sleep. “But if we’re ever going to do the traditional Christmas thing, we have to start now. Morgan’s too smart. She’ll probably even be skeptical about Santa Claus this year, but it’s better than nothing.”

The next day, Tony had gone out to the storage shed and pulled out the boxes of holiday decorations, which had sat and accumulated dust ever since they moved here three years ago. He was doing well until he opened the first box of ornaments and saw the ornament that Peter had made him the year they'd both been kidnapped. He had a panic attack then, bent over and gasping, silent tears rolling down his cheeks. He remembered how brave Peter had been during their captivity, how he’d leaned into Tony’s side and cried in the middle of the night in their cell. If he thought about it, he could still feel the slight tickle on his neck from Peter’s curly hair. 

When Morgan’s pet guinea pig had died a few months ago, she’d cried in his arms, and the only thing he’d been able to see when he looked down at her sweet, tearstained little face was another kid with big, sad brown eyes and soft hair. 

He hadn’t been the kid’s father, but he’d felt the exact same way about Peter as he felt now about Morgan. Why hadn’t he hugged Peter more? Told the kid he loved him? Decorated Christmas cookies with him? He had been a fool, and he had taken so much for granted. 

He’d grown up in an emotionally stunted household, and he’d been proud of himself for learning to say “I love you” without actually saying it. He booked surprise massages for Pepper after she had a stressful week at work. He showed up in Washington, D.C. on Rhodey’s birthday. It had always worked, and it made him feel like he’d won somehow; like he’d sidestepped Howard’s legacy of cold politeness.

So he’d used the same approach with Peter. Instead of saying “I love you, kid,” he said:

_“I made a few suit upgrades; those taser webs should help if someone gets past your webs and you have to fight at close range.”_

_“You want me to quiz you for your Spanish test? I know subjunctive is really difficult.”_

_“Hey, how was that decathlon meet?”_

Or when they’d been in captivity, _“You have the can of soup today, Pete. I’m not hungry.”_

It wasn’t until he’d had Morgan that he’d understood the gravity of his stupidity. Kids needed to hear things spoken out loud, especially kids who had lost three of their four parental figures. That had been the problem with his own childhood, hadn’t it—his father never just saying the damn words? So why hadn’t he known? Why hadn’t he just told the kid? _You’re loved, you’re wanted, my life is better because you are in it._

“Daddy?” Morgan asked again, her voice soft. Tony blinked and he was back in his warm kitchen on Christmas Eve, standing next to his daughter and a tray of cookies. 

“Is Christmas a sad holiday?”

Tony’s heart sunk. So much for making this a good first Christmas for Morgan. “No, Little Miss. Actually, most people say that Christmas is the happiest time of the year.”

“You’re sad, though.”

“Yes, I’m sad.”

“Why, Daddy?” 

Tony surprised himself with his next words. “Daddy gets sad sometimes. You’ve probably noticed before, right?”

Morgan nodded. 

“Go change into your PJs, okay? There’s someone I want to tell you about.”

“Is it that weird Santa guy again?” Morgan wrinkled her nose, and Tony’s heart melted. God, he loved her so much. He’d never known that this was what it would be like, being a father. He’d spent so much time fearing it, fearing Howard’s shadow. He’d held Peter at arm's length for such a long time, and he’d never get the chance to apologize for that. He could only try his best to make sure Morgan knew she was beloved and cherished. 

His heart pounded nervously in his chest. He and Pep had talked about this before, and they’d agreed that Tony should tell Morgan about Peter whenever he was ready to talk about it. Was he ready now? It didn’t feel like it, based on the way his palms were sweating. 

But it was Christmas Eve. And Peter had lost so much, and he’d still loved Christmas. 

“No, Morguna,” he said softly. “I want to tell you about your brother.”

He put the cookies away, and then before he could overthink it too much, he picked up the picture frame that sat on a shelf next to the sink. He stopped by the Christmas tree and grabbed the colorful ornament he could barely bring himself to look at, the one with Iron Man and Spider-Man flying next to each other. And then he summoned his courage. 

He’d once thought that bravery was breaking out of a cave in Afghanistan, transforming his father’s company, and fighting the Chitauri and Ultron and HYDRA. 

He knew now that bravery was making a choice to love your children with your whole heart, even though human existence was a fragile and fleeting thing. 


	5. 2023

v. 2023

It had been four months since the world had...changed. 

That was the only way Peter could think of to describe the current situation. He knew there were people out there who had come back from the blip to find that their families had died or moved on in the five years they’d been gone. To them, it had been four months since the world ended. 

But there were many, many others—billions of people who had been left behind—who believed that the world had started anew the second Bruce Banner and Iron Man snapped their fingers with the Infinity Gauntlet, bringing everyone back and defeating Thanos. 

But for Peter, it had been four months since he found himself adrift in what felt like an alternate universe. He’d gone to bed one night excited for his field trip to MOMA, and then the next thing he knew, it was five years later, they’d killed a vengeful purple megalomaniac, and Mr. Stark was in a coma. 

It wasn’t so much that the world had ended or begun, it was that everything familiar seemed strange and foreign suddenly. May had even started dating Happy. Apparently they’d both liked each other before the snap, but they’d never acted on it until May had been brought back to life. Peter loved Happy like an uncle, but it was still a huge adjustment. May got a new job helping at one of the relief centers, and just like that, her entire life was different. She wasn’t alone anymore, she had a job she loved, and thanks to Happy’s extra income, she was financially stable for the first time in years.

She was finally happy again. Peter often caught her singing in the kitchen when she cooked, something she hadn’t done since Ben’s death. And he was relieved and grateful, he really was. May deserved only the best. 

But he couldn’t help thinking that she would’ve been fine if he never came back from the blip. 

And then there was Tony. 

***

For the first month after the final battle with Thanos, Tony had been in Wakanda, receiving world-class medical treatment from Dr. Cho and the best Wakandan doctors. Pepper decided to move him to the lake house in September, hoping that a familiar environment might help him wake up, but there had been no changes since then. Peter visited once a month, fighting back waves of anxiety and nausea the entire time.

There wasn’t exactly a plethora of medical journal articles about the aftereffects of wielding the Infinity Gauntlet, so the doctors were unable to predict if Tony would ever wake up.

It was Peter’s fault. It was all his fault. 

Mr. Stark had rebuilt his life after Peter was gone. He’d married Ms. Potts and had his own kid. And then he’d snapped with the Gauntlet to stop Thanos. Some small part of Peter knew that Tony’s sacrifice had probably been for his benefit, but he didn’t allow himself to think that. He had to believe that Mr. Stark had wanted to reverse the blip and stop Thanos for the sake of the billions of other families who had lost loved ones. Otherwise, it would really be all his fault. 

He’d thought he’d beaten Parker Luck. He’d once taken a bullet for Mr. Stark.

It turned out that he’d only been preventing the inevitable. 

***

“So,” he said to Tony’s sleeping form the first time he visited. “You have a lake house. And an alpaca. And weirdest of all, a kid.”

He tried not to notice Mr. Stark’s unnatural pallor and stillness. Tony’s plaid blanket rose and fell softly with his breathing, but that was the only sign of life. His mentor looked exhausted and _old_ , yet another facet of this seemingly endless alternate universe Peter found himself in.

“Hey!” Morgan exclaimed, lifting her head from her coloring book. “I heard that.”

“Sorry, I didn’t mean that _you’re_ the weirdest.”

Morgan tilted her head, tapping her chin with a blue crayon. “I’ll let it slide, just this once,” she said, clearly parroting something that Pepper often said to her.

Peter couldn’t help the laugh that escaped. She was a perfect cross between Pepper’s keen logic and Tony’s sass.

“Do you think Daddy is going to wake up soon?” Morgan asked a minute later. “Is that why you’re talking to him?”

“Uh…” Peter started. Being an only child, he wasn’t quite sure how to talk to four-year-olds, especially about death and comatose states. “I hope he wakes up soon. But I’m just talking to him for fun. Because I miss talking to him.”

“Wanna color with me?” Morgan asked, kicking her legs idly in the air and moving her arm so there was room for him. “I’m doing the prince, but you can color in the princess.”

“Um, okay,” Peter agreed tentatively, unfolding himself from the chair and lowering himself next to her on the carpet. He picked up a purple marker and began to shade in the princess’ dress.

Morgan had more questions for him a moment later.

“Is Aunt May your mommy? And is my mommy your aunt?”

It took Peter a moment to untangle this line of questioning. “Aunt May is my aunt. And your mommy is my…friend.” He hoped that Pepper wasn’t listening in on this awkward conversation.

“Why do you call daddy ‘Tony’?”

“Uh…because he’s my…friend too.” He cringed at his own response.

Morgan frowned. “But—”

“Morgan!” Pepper called from the kitchen. “Wash your hands for lunch.”

Damn it. Pepper had definitely been listening.

***

It took Peter a long time to get back into Spider-Manning after the battle against Thanos. 

He just felt vaguely _distracted_ all the time, thinking about Mr. Stark. There had been a girl in his sixth grade English class whose mom had been dying of cancer, and Peter still remembered the hazy, faraway look she often had in her eye. He remembered how she flinched every time there was an announcement on the PA system, waiting to be called down to the office for bad news. At the time, he’d found himself thinking that maybe it was best his parents had died so suddenly. At least he hadn’t lived through the agony of not knowing. 

Now…he patrolled less often. He sometimes found himself sitting on the roof of a building and staring idly off into the distance without knowing how he’d gotten there. He sat in his classes next to students he didn’t know (since half of his old classmates were now 21 years old) and he looked out the window, letting his teachers’ words wash over him. 

_He’s alive. There’s still hope. He might wake up and make a full recovery,_ he’d think to himself. 

But then other times, usually on the long drive back from his monthly trip to the lake house, he’d think: _He had another kid. He replaced you. Even if he does wake up, he doesn’t need you anymore._

When he got injured on patrol for the first time since the final battle, Karen tried to call Mr. Stark. 

“Good luck with that, Karen,” Peter laughed coldly. 

“Are you alright, Peter? You seem to be displaying an uncharacteristic amount of anger.”

“I’m great, Karen. Just great,” he said sarcastically.

He normally didn’t speak sarcastically to her, so she didn’t pick up on his tone. 

“I’m glad to hear that—”

“You’re not even real, Karen. I don’t know why I pretend like you are.”

“Peter, Mr. Stark designed me to simulate—”

He ripped his mask off. Karen didn’t matter. She was made up. She couldn’t actually patch up his wounds or hug him or love him. 

He gritted his teeth, looking down at his swollen, bleeding knee. He could call Happy or May and they would come get him in a heartbeat. But…May had a book club meeting with her friends tonight, and Happy was at the compound. Neither of them would say it, but they were both happy and relieved that he’d gone back to Spider-Manning. He didn’t want to worry them.

And neither of them knew that he always craved Mexican food after he got injured, or that he loved watching old episodes of _The Office_ to distract himself when he had to get stitches.

Only Mr. Stark knew those things, but he was somewhere unreachable, fast asleep and far away, surrounded by his wife and daughter—his _real_ family.

So Peter swung by CVS on his way home, hobbling inside to buy a brace for his knee, as well as a stockpile of bandages and other medical supplies. Over the next few months, he learned how to hide and take care of injuries on his own.

It was best this way, he told himself. After all, he’d be a senior in high school next year, and then he’d go off to college—maybe to MIT. Or maybe he’d just go somewhere totally different on the opposite side of the country—get a fresh start.

Go where nobody knew him. Where he couldn’t hurt the people he loved.

***

May and Happy wanted to go all out for Christmas.

“This is the first time in…probably ten years that I haven’t had to work on Christmas Eve,” May sighed happily as she sipped her glass of wine from her perch on the sofa.

Peter and Happy had carried all the decorations out of storage and they were straightening the branches of the fake tree so that they could begin stringing the lights on it. If either adult noticed that Peter was being unusually quiet, they didn’t say anything. Peter had been feeling a weird low-level nausea since that morning, and it had only grown as the day progressed.

Maybe it had to do with the Christmas tree. That had been Ben and Peter’s job for so long, and May and Happy weren’t doing it right. May had even gone out and bought new lights to replace the ones he and Ben had always used, which had several bulbs that had burned out over the years. Peter liked the old lights. They had character. These new lights were pristine and bright, but they weren’t the same.

None of it was right. Happy put Ben’s favorite ornament near the bottom of the tree, instead of at the front and center where it belonged.

Neither of them meant any harm, he knew that. But he wasn’t supposed to be setting up the tree with Happy and May. It was supposed to be Ben.

It was supposed to be Mr. Stark.

He found himself fighting the odd urge to burst out of the apartment and run. Or maybe that had something to do with the nausea, which had become more and more noticeable over the past hour—

“Peter?” May interrupted him, putting a gentle hand on his elbow. “Are you okay? You were rubbing the back of your neck.”

He was?

He was.

Peter’s spidey sense had never done this before—this kind of slow burn that made him want to leap out of his skin and go to—

“The lake house,” he breathed to himself. He needed to go to the lake house. Something was wrong.

“Kid?” Happy asked, his face concerned.

“Uh…I need to get some fresh air. May, can I borrow the car?” He cast a pleading look at her, hoping she’d think it was about Ben and the tree.

He could see her waver. “I can go with you, honey—”

“No, it’s fine,” he said hastily. He didn’t bother to hide his super speed like normal—he had his shoes and jacket on within two seconds and he was out the door before they could say anything else. He heard them speaking in concerned tones as he flew down the stairs, but he consciously didn’t listen.

He pulled onto the road in May’s reliable old Camry, inputting the directions to the lake house. He’d only gotten his license two months earlier—he’d finished driver’s ed right before the snap, and Mr. Stark had taken him out to do most of his practice driving hours. After Thanos, Happy had helped him complete the final ten hours and May had taken him to the DMV.

Just another thing that was all wrong.

It should’ve been Mr. Stark.

As soon as he got out of the city and onto the highway, he called Pepper.

“Hi, Peter, what’s up?” Pepper asked. He could hear a kids’ TV show playing in the background, and he relaxed his grip on the steering wheel slightly. It was a good sign that Pepper seemed calm.

“Hi, Pepper,” Peter said. He wanted to choose his words carefully so he didn’t freak her out. “Hey, is Tony okay? I just…wanted to check.”

“Yes, Dr. Cho just stopped by for her weekly appointment with him. She said his numbers are actually looking better this week, which is great.”

“Oh,” Peter said, frowning. His spidey sense never lied, and he was still feeling a strong tug towards the lake house. “That’s—that’s really great! Hey, um…would it be okay if I came over in a little bit? I know we—we weren’t supposed to come celebrate until tomorrow, but—”

“Peter,” Pepper interrupted. “This is your home too. You can always come over.”

Peter didn’t know what to say to that. “Okay, uh, thanks. I’ll be over in a few hours.”

“Drive safe! Morgan will be so happy to see you.”

Peter pushed his speed to 15 over the limit. He kept thinking about that girl—Kira Gonzalez; that had been her name. He remembered now that there had been a day when the guidance counselor had come to their English class and placed a hand on Kira’s shoulder. Kira’s face had instantly crumpled, and Ned had helped her gather up her stuff so she could leave class.

She hadn’t been at school for two weeks after that.

***

“Hi, guys,” Peter said, trying to grin cheerfully at Pepper and Morgan.

“That was fast,” Pepper remarked, a bit too casually. He wouldn’t be surprised if she and May were texting about him.

“Can I—would it be okay—”

“You don’t have to ask, Peter,” Pepper reminded him gently. “You know where he is.” She turned to Morgan. “You leave your brother alone for a little bit, okay? I’m sure he’ll play with you later.”

Morgan grumbled some response to that, but Peter didn’t hear it. He was frozen, one hand on the bannister to the stairs.

Brother?

_Brother?_

Somebody needed to tell Pepper that Peter wasn’t—that he wasn’t Tony’s—

He was distracted by a sharp spike in his spidey sense. He took the last few steps up the stairs at a run, bursting into Tony’s room.

***

He was terrified that he’d hear the sound of Tony’s heartbeat fading away, exactly like it had after he’d snapped with the Gauntlet.

But when he stepped into the bedroom, Tony’s heart monitor was beeping peacefully, like always. All of the numbers on the monitors around the bed were green. Peter could hear that his heart rate and breathing were slow and steady, just like they’d been ever since Wakanda.

Peter wanted to sag to the floor with relief, but another part of him was suddenly furious.

“Soundproof, FRIDAY,” he ordered, pacing around until he was sure the AI had complied with his request.

Then he pivoted towards the bed, and four months of grief and rage spilled out.

“This isn’t supposed to be happening,” he said, gritting his teeth.

“You’re supposed to be awake! Pepper and Morgan need you. I—I need you!” He was startled to find that his voice had risen to a shout.

There was no response. Peter clenched his fists by his side. He wanted to kick the stupid monitor until it stopped beeping. He wanted to sweep all the peaceful, beautiful artwork off the walls. He wanted to scream until Mr. Stark had no choice but to hear him and wake up.

“You can’t do this—this can’t _happen,_ Mr. Stark! It’s Christmas Eve—do you hear me? You need to wake the fuck up!”

He grabbed Mr. Stark’s shoulder and shook it gently.

Nothing.

“Wake up, please. God, please, I’ll do anything you want, Mr. Stark, just wake up. Wake up, wake up—”

His shouting faded into sobbing. He collapsed to his knees next to the bed, his hands fisted in Mr. Stark’s blanket.

“Please, Mr. Stark,” he cried, breath hitching. “I can’t lose you too. It’s—it’s Christmas Eve. We’re supposed to spend the day together, like we always do.”

No answer.

“There’s—there’s a Lego Spider-Man set now. A real one. Ned got it for me for Christmas. I w-wanted to show you…”

He buried his face in the blanket too, not caring that he was probably getting tears and snot all over it.

Pepper burst into the room suddenly. Peter lifted his head, certain that she was going to berate him for yelling at her comatose husband.

Instead, her face was stark white and she grabbed his arm, frantic. “Have you seen Morgan? Is she in here? FRIDAY can’t get a read on her—”

Peter’s heart plummeted. His spidey sense was acute now—he’d been ignoring it while crying.

“I haven’t seen her,” he said faintly. “She’s not here—”

He froze, hearing a distant noise that sounded like—

“ _No_ ,” he whispered, shaking his head in denial. _No. It couldn’t be_. His eyes met Pepper’s horrified gaze. “The lake.”

***

Peter jumped right out of the bedroom window, not minding that it was on the second floor of the house. He’d survived much worse falls before, and he didn’t have time for things like stairs and doors.

He sprinted down to the lake faster than he’d ever run anywhere before. Everything he’d ever learned about rescuing somebody who’d fallen through ice flashed through his mind—spreading your weight, getting somebody to pull you with a rope from the shore—but there was no time for any of that.

He could see the hole where the ice had cracked beneath Morgan’s feet.

_God, her feet were so small. She was so small. Was she wearing her purple boots, or had she gone outside barefoot?_

Peter laid down as soon as he reached the lake, army crawling his way towards the hole. He could hear Morgan’s heart rate somewhere nearby, quick as a jack rabbit. How long had it been since he’d heard the ice crack? 10 seconds? 30 seconds? He figured that he probably had two minutes, tops to get to her. She would run out of oxygen before then, though, and then she’d stop fighting and sink even deeper into the water.

When the ice cracked beneath him and pitched him into the lake, he wasn’t surprised. He knew he’d been going too quickly, but there was no other choice. The water was so cold that it _hurt,_ like being stabbed everywhere, all at once. The sun had mostly set by now, and it was dark beneath the surface. He forced the urge to panic down.

 _Morgan’s heartbeat._ He shut off every other sense besides hearing and touch, forging forward in the water with his hands outstretched. He brushed something and his breath caught. No—just seaweed.

 _Keep going, keep going._ How long had it been now? Surely a minute by this point. He was starting to feel lightheaded, but he couldn’t resurface unless he had Morgan. He couldn’t let Tony down like this.

Her heartbeat was slowing down, and he had to strain to know which way to swim _._ He used his all of his remaining energy to burst forward one last time, straining, seeking—there. His fingers brushed something familiar—Morgan’s jacket.

He grabbed her and kicked fiercely towards the surface, punching through the ice above their heads with his super strength. He was about to run out of oxygen, and it was all he could do to hold her up, out of the water, so that she could hopefully breathe.

He didn’t know how he was going to get her back to shore—they were both going to drown right here, so close to the light and the warmth of the lake house.

Peter’s mind was beginning to grow foggy, but he kept holding Morgan up, praying that she was taking in air.

_Just let her live. Please, just let her live._

This was his last thought before he felt himself being lifted up and carried in strong arms.

***

The next thing Peter knew, he was sprawled on the front porch of the lake house, coughing up water.

“That’s it, Peter,” Pepper’s voice encouraged from near his ear. “Get as much as you can out.”

He could hear Morgan coughing too, though, and pushed himself into a sitting position.

“Morgan—” He choked out weakly. His throat felt like it had been rubbed raw with sandpaper, but he could already feel his super healing kicking in.

“She’s okay,” Pepper said. “She’s conscious. I called Dr. Cho. She’s taking the quinjet; she’ll be here in half an hour. You both need chest x-rays and fluids and warmth.”

Peter managed to blink and lift gritty eyelids. He needed to see that Morgan was okay with his own eyes. He thought about how his spidey sense had been going off all day; how some part of Peter had known that he needed to be at the lake house. He had never experienced such specific precognition before, but—his spider side recognized that Morgan was important and needed his protection. She wasn’t his sister, but—

Pepper was holding her while she coughed. To Peter’s relief, Morgan had her eyes open.

He was surprised to notice that Pepper was wearing the Rescue suit, her faceplate retracted.

“Was that you? Who got us out of the water?” He croaked.

Pepper nodded, smoothing wet hair off Morgan’s face.

“Oh—thanks,” Peter said, managing a small smile.

It was stupid—he had thought, for one glorious, fleeting second, that maybe it had been Tony who had lifted them out of the water. But that was impossible.

“Peter,” Pepper said, laying a hand on his arm. He could see tears in her eyes. “Don’t thank me for a single thing ever again. You saved her life.

***

“I’m sorry,” Morgan whispered tearfully into Pepper’s shoulder. It had been a few hours since their misadventure, and Dr. Cho had just left after prescribing them antibiotics and instructing FRIDAY to monitor his and Morgan’s temperature and breathing for the next 24 hours.

“I just wanted to see the reindeer. There was a reindeer on the lake,” Morgan explained.

Peter wanted to throw up—she’d almost died because she’d been chasing a deer?

“You know you’re not allowed to leave the house alone, sweetheart,” Pepper said firmly.

“But I wanted to see if the reindeer could talk to Santa for me. I wished that Daddy could wake up for Christmas, and I wanted to make sure Santa knows that that’s the present I want.”

Pepper closed her eyes, seemingly unable to speak.

“I’m in big trouble, huh, Mommy?”

“We’ll talk about it tomorrow, Morgan,” Pepper said, her voice tight. “Go say goodnight to Daddy.”

Morgan flitted away eagerly, seeming no worse for wear.

“Are kids always this stressful?” Peter asked.

Pepper snorted, wiping her eyes. “Yes. Especially when your daughter's father is a crazy genius. You know what Morgan told me when I was helping her change into pajamas? She memorized Tony’s override codes for FRIDAY, and she used one of the codes so that FRIDAY wouldn’t alert me when she went outside. You can’t make this stuff up, Peter—”

They were interrupted by Morgan suddenly shrieking.

“Mommy!” She yelled. “Petey! Daddy’s hand moved! I saw Daddy’s hand move!”

***

Pepper, Peter, and Morgan held a silent vigil in Tony’s room. They were all afraid to speak or do anything besides sit and watch Tony.

At first, Peter had been afraid that Morgan might’ve imagined Tony’s hand moving, or that it could’ve just been a muscle spasm. But he’d grown used to the sound of Tony’s slow, even breathing over the past few months, and it sounded…different now. Faster. More normal. Like he was just sleeping.

“He’s breathing different, right?” He finally whispered after half an hour.

“…maybe,” Pepper replied carefully. He could tell that she didn’t want to get their hopes up.

“Holy shit,” Peter breathed a few minutes later. “I think he just—I think he just blinked!”

They all sat up even straighter. Neither Pepper nor Morgan commented on his swearing. They all just kept watching.

“Tony?” Pepper said softly, touching his hand. “Can you hear us, honey?”

After four months, five days, and eight hours, Tony opened his eyes.

***

Poor Dr. Cho was summoned for the third time that day.

“Don’t think…’m gonna be able to stay awake very long,” Tony mumbled. “Where’s—where’s Pete?”

Peter opened his mouth but no sound came out.

“He’s right here, Tony,” Pepper said, giving Peter a reassuring look. There were tears streaming down her cheeks.

“I…I thought I heard Peter crying earlier. S’okay?”

“I’m—I’m fine.” Peter stepped closer to the bed.

“I missed you, Daddy!” Morgan burst out, ignoring all of Pepper’s warnings and vaulting herself onto the bed, tucking herself under Tony’s good arm.

“I miss you too, Morguna,” Tony sighed, his eyes drifting closed again. “I love you guys. So much.”

“We love you too, honey,” Pepper whispered. “Go back to sleep, we’ll be here when you wake up again.”

***

“Wow,” May said the next day as she sat next to him on the front porch of the lake house. “That’s an amazing story. Minus the almost-drowning part. And we need to have a word about you not telling adults when your Peter Tingle is acting up.”

“Don’t call it that,” Peter grumbled half-heartedly.

“This must be the best Christmas of your life, huh, honey?”

Peter kicked at some dirt with his shoe. “Yeah, it’s been really—really great.” He tried to smile.

He thought about Tony’s missing left arm, which had been amputated in Wakanda—how that arm had held him during their captivity a few years ago. How that arm had lifted him when he needed to be flown out of battles and fights. How that arm had borne Peter’s weight on Titan when he turned to dust and ash.

He thought about how Morgan had leaped onto the bed and crawled into place under Tony’s good arm, his remaining right arm.

There was no comforting arm left for him anymore.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lessons I've learned while working on this fic: I suck at writing with deadlines and shouldn't take on any projects that require me to post a chapter per day


	6. 2024

v. 2024

It had been a long year.

By all appearances, it had been a good year. May and Happy had gotten engaged. Peter was coasting smoothly towards the end of high school. Ever since Thanos’ defeat, more and more people in Queens recognized Spider-Man as a hero.

Tony had mostly recovered from the snap, to the shock and relief of his entire medical team. He still got tired more easily than he used to, and he still suffered from several other little side effects, but he was able to keep up pretty well with Peter and Morgan during Peter’s visits to the lake house.

Peter kept his monthly visiting schedule and he always looked forward to it. He loved playing board games with Morgan, cooking with Pepper, and watching movies with Tony. It was much easier to sleep at the lake house—if he strained, he could always hear Tony’s heartbeat just a few rooms over.

But he kept his distance, too. He remembered once thinking to himself that Tony wasn’t his dad, and if Tony _wanted_ to be a dad, he would just have kids of his own.

That was exactly what Tony had done, so Peter tried not to butt in too much. He turned down an offer to visit Malibu with the Stark family over spring break, citing an important decathlon meet. He made sure that his monthly visit didn’t fall over Father’s Day weekend, so that Morgan could have time with Tony by herself.

He got a summer internship with Dr. Banner right around the time that Mr. Stark was feeling well enough to return to working in his lab for a few hours per day. Tony had asked Peter to stay at the lake house for the summer and work with him in the lab there, but Peter had already committed to spending most of June and July in Wakanda and August traveling around to different science conferences with Dr. Banner.

It was best this way, he reminded himself.

***

By the time Christmas rolled around, Peter was exhausted. It had been well over a year since Thanos’ death, but Peter still had nightmares every night. He was stressed about college applications, and he felt like he hadn’t been warm in years. It was shaping up to be a particularly brutal, nasty winter, and New York’s criminals didn’t seem to care that Spider-Man couldn’t thermoregulate.

He arrived at the lake house on the 24th feeling ready to sleep for about 25 years.

“Peter!” Morgan shouted, sprinting down the steps and flinging her arms around him. “I made you a present! You’re going to really love it, I know it!”

He winced when he caught her—he’d been in a fight with a drug dealer and his cronies the day before, and his super healing never worked well when he was cold, tired, or hungry, and he was all three.

“That’s awesome, Mo,” Peter said, grabbing his overnight bag from the car and following her into the house, nodding along gamely as she updated him on all the latest kindergarten gossip. 

“Okay,” Tony said when he saw Peter. “Where’s my kid and who’s this walking skeleton?”

Peter rolled his eyes, internally squirming a bit. He never knew what to do when Tony called Peter “his kid,” a new habit since the snap. When he’d first woken up from his coma, he’d even been telling Peter that he loved him! This habit had only tapered off after a while when he seemed to realize that it made Peter uncomfortable

“Finals season. Haven’t slept or eaten much lately,” he offered as an excuse.

“Well, prepare for us to remedy all your woes,” Tony continued on dramatically. “You’re officially on vacation. Morgan, if you see Peter trying to do any chores or homework, you tell me right away.”

“Don’t listen to him, Morgan,” Peter stage-whispered.

“Look, Morgan, your brother has been here for less than a minute, and he’s already being a horrible influence on you.”

Yep, that was still a thing—Pepper and Tony both referred to Morgan as his sister, much to Peter’s discomfort.

“Mommy says that _you’re_ the bad influence in this family, Daddy,” Morgan shrugged.

Peter laughed, helping himself to some of Morgan’s veggie chips while Tony sputtered indignantly.

“Look, I’m eating, see? And it even has vegetables in it.” Peter waved a green chip in Tony’s direction.

“It’s still a chip, Pete. Morgan, why don’t you go put on that thing you wanted to show Peter? I’ll make you guys some grilled cheese sandwiches for lunch, okay?”

“Come on, Petey!” Morgan exclaimed, dragging Peter away before he could protest or get a word in edgewise.

What Morgan wanted to show him was insanely boring toy unboxing videos on YouTube.

“You really like this stuff, Momo?” He asked skeptically, cramming half of his grilled cheese into his mouth. It was delicious, and Tony had prepared tomato soup and a tray of veggies to go with it. “When I was a kid, we used to just watch Disney movies and call it a day.”

Morgan shrugged. “I wanted to watch _Tangled_ , but Daddy told me to put this on so you’d fall asleep.”

Peter gaped at her. “Tony!” He called, exasperated.

“Yeah, Pete?” Tony yelled from the kitchen.

“You manipulated Morgan into making me watch this crap? What, did you put tranquilizers in my soup too?”

Tony poked his head into the room.

“I’m taking away one of your Christmas gifts and replacing it with coal,” he said, pointing at Morgan.

Peter glared and happily switched the TV to _Tangled_.

***

Maybe there really _were_ tranquilizers in his soup. Or maybe he was just really damn tired.

Whatever the reason, he only made it half an hour into _Tangled_ before he was out like a light. He dimly heard voices around him—Morgan’s off-key singing, Tony’s low rumble, close by as he draped a blanket over Peter’s shoulders, Pepper’s even tone somewhere in the distance.

Morgan giving him a hug and saying something about Santa, the sounds of the door opening and closing, and then silence. He rolled over onto his side and listened for Mr. Stark’s familiar heartbeat, allowing himself to relax into a deep sleep for the first time since his last visit to the lake house in November.

***

It was dark and quiet when Peter woke up.

Mr. Stark sat on the other couch, his face illuminated by his StarkPad. He was wearing his prosthetic arm today, and it glinted in the low blue light. It was a thing of mechanical beauty, but it was cold and inhuman.

“He lives!” Mr. Stark exclaimed when he noticed Peter blinking sluggishly. “How do you feel?”

“’M fine,” Peter yawned. “What time is it?”

“Just after 5.”

“PM?!” Peter exclaimed, sitting bolt upright and cringing as his injured ribs twinged. If that was true, he’d been napping for nearly five hours.

“Wouldn’t it be worse if it was 5 AM?” Mr. Stark pointed out, raising one eyebrow. “Lights up a bit, FRI.”

FRIDAY gradually illuminated the room to a warm glow, just the way that was best for Peter’s sensitive eyes. Nobody but Mr. Stark knew these kinds of little details about Peter’s senses, not even May.

“Where’s Morgan? I’m surprised you convinced her not to wake me up for such a long time.”

“Right,” Mr. Stark nodded. “About that. She and Pepper left a few hours ago. They’re at the compound for the rest of tonight.”

Peter blinked. “But…why? Is everything okay?”

Mr. Stark nodded again. “Everything is fine, Pete. They’ll drive back here tomorrow along with May and Happy and everyone else who is coming over to celebrate.”

“I still don’t get it. Morgan and I were supposed to make cocoa.”

“That can wait until tomorrow, Pete,” Mr. Stark said. His voice was unusually gentle, which made Peter’s suspicion level instantly quadruple.

“You’re—are you going to tell me some kind of bad news or something?” He recalled sitting in the waiting area in Wakanda and hearing somebody—some doctor or nurse—making a comment about radiation from the Infinity Gauntlet, and how radiation exposure was linked to an increased risk of developing several types of cancer—

“Whoa, easy there, Pete. You need to breathe, bud.”

Peter clenched his fingers in the fabric of his sweatpants.

“Just tell me, whatever it is,” He gasped, trying to control his panic.

“Okay, look, it’s nothing bad, I promise. I just sent them away because—because you seemed like you needed a quiet Christmas Eve.”

“Oh god,” Peter groaned, thunking his head against the back of the couch. “This is your attempt at an intervention, isn’t it?”

“Can you blame me? You look like you haven’t been sleeping or eating. FRIDAY confirmed that _somebody_ removed Karen’s injury tracking software. And you’ve been distant for _months_ —”

“That’s none of your business,” Peter bit out. His hands were shaking. He couldn’t have this conversation, because he’d crack into a million little pieces.

Mr. Stark backed off momentarily. “Okay, wait—don’t think of this as an intervention, I shouldn’t have agreed with you when you said that,” he sighed.

They were quiet for a moment.

“I just…look, kid, remember how we used to always spend Christmas Eve together? I thought we could do that again.”

“Morgan should be here,” Peter protested firmly. “She still kind of believes in Santa and all that stuff, right? You’re making Christmas weird for her on my behalf.”

Tony shook his head. “We didn’t even celebrate Christmas until she was 3, Pete; she has no real frame of reference for what Christmas _should_ be like.”

“I’m going to take a shower,” Peter grumbled, standing. His muscles ached from the fight yesterday, and he couldn’t get warm.

“Don’t you want to know why?” Tony asked as Peter stood and folded the blanket he’d been sleeping under.

“Why what?” Peter sighed.

“Why we didn’t celebrate Christmas until she was 3?”

“I don’t know; maybe because nobody has any memories until they’re 3, so there’s no point celebrating before then?”

He walked out of the room faster than was humanly possible, but he still wasn’t fast enough to avoid Tony, clearly on a mission, telling him anyway.

“It was because of you, Pete. Because I missed you too damn much.”

Peter shivered. Like always, part of him wanted to run across the room and fling himself into Tony’s arms and never let go. Another part of him wanted to burst out of the front door, hop in May’s old Camry, and flee to Canada and start a new life.

"I’m going to shower,” he said flatly, turning away and jogging upstairs.

***

“Food?” Mr. Stark suggested when Peter reemerged 45 minutes later.

“Only if you promise that we don’t have to talk about touchy-feeling stuff,” Peter bargained.

“Fine,” Mr. Stark said, holding up his arms in surrender. “Hey, there’s a really great diner not too far away. Feel like a little road trip?”

Peter glanced out the window. It was snowing lightly, but it wasn’t too bad.

“I get to drive,” Peter decided, grabbing his keys and his jacket.

“Ah, I remember when I first got my license,” Mr. Stark laughed. “Lead the way, young buck.”

“Ew, don’t call me that.”

Mr. Stark bumped his shoulder against Peter’s on the way outside, and for a moment, it felt like everything was back to normal.

***

“Mr. Stark?”

“Yeah, Pete?”

“Where the fuck is this place? I’ve already been driving for like…an hour.”

“It’s only been 45 minutes, bud. We’ll be there in 10,” Mr. Stark said, checking his watch.

“You said this diner ‘wasn’t too far away.’ What do you call this?” Peter asked, motioning to the rolling white hills surrounding them on either side of the highway. It had been miles since Peter had seen a house or a store.

“I’m a country boy now, Parker. An hour away for a restaurant isn’t far for me.”

“Country boy,” Peter sang automatically. “I love you….laah.”

“Look, kid, you know I think the sun shines out of your ass, but—that was…not good.”

Peter rolled his eyes. “It’s from Vine, Mr. Stark. It’s not supposed to be good.”

“What’s Vine again?”

“Oh my god, you’re literally the head of R&D for the biggest tech company in the world. Vine is—well, it’s gone now,” Peter trailed off, his spirits flagging. “It got shut down…during the years of the blip, I guess. Yeah.”

Mr. Stark mimed zipping his lips and throwing away a key. “Look, kid, I’m not saying anything about feelings over here. But if you wanted to talk about it—”

“Nope.”

“Okay, that’s what I thought. Let’s put on the radio?”

“Nelly’s radio doesn’t work, Tony.”

“Nelly?”

“That’s what May named this car.”

“Look, kid, can you convince your aunt to let me buy you a car already? Because this thing is a safety hazard.”

“Don’t call Nelly a ‘thing’! She has more character in her muffler than your entire Audi.”

“Character isn’t going to save your ass when you’re in an accident. And if you ask me—”

“Mr. Stark—”

“—the most important thing is—”

“Mr. Stark—”

“—to invest properly in a car that—”

“TONY!”

Tony stopped talking. “What’s wrong?”

“Um. The brakes aren’t working,” Peter said, clutching the steering wheel and pressing his foot down on the brake pedal as hard as he could.

“Okay, right. Right—just—coast to a stop, okay, kiddo? Just like we practiced. Don’t focus on the brakes, just focus on steering. The car will stop on its own.”

“Holy shit, holy shit,” Peter muttered under his breath.

“You’re doing great, Pete. It’s probably just the cold messing with the brakes,” Mr. Stark continued calmly. Peter remembered Mr. Stark using this same tone of voice the first time he’d taken Peter driving on the road, a lifetime ago.

When they were parked on the edge of the highway, Peter had to consciously relax his hands on the steering wheel. He’d dented it slightly with the strength of his panicked grip.

“Well, this is fun. That diner isn’t too far away, you said?” He sighed.

“Yep,” Mr. Stark said cheerfully. “Just another mile or so.”

“Yippee,” Peter said sarcastically. “Tony, will you be okay with—”

“Don’t even finish that sentence, kid. I’m fine. I can thermoregulate, unlike you.” He looked at Peter’s threadbare old jacket. “Jesus, kid, that’s not warm enough for you. Here, let’s switch.”

Before Peter could protest, Mr. Stark pulled off his designer winter coat and shoved it in Peter’s direction.

“Mr. Stark—”

“Switch with me or I’m walking to the diner without a jacket on.”

“That’s blatant manipulation,” Peter pointed out, reluctantly accepting the warmer jacket and grabbing his backpack from the backseat.

“Right, so, new car, new jacket—anything else I’m missing?” Tony asked as they set off down the highway, bowing their heads against the wind and snow flurries. “Your aunt and I are going to have a talk next time I see her.”

“It’s fine, Mr. Stark. I’m pretty sure May got me a new jacket for Christmas, and I live in the city; I barely need a car. And besides, I’m going to college next year—”

“Yeah, speaking of that. May told me that you’re thinking about the University of Oregon for college, and I just gotta say—what the fuck, Pete?”

“Just keeping my options open,” Peter shrugged.

Mr. Stark was uncharacteristically quiet for a moment. Peter strained to hear his next words.

“Look, kid…I know you want space. But…you can go to MIT if you want. I won’t interfere or bug you or show up on campus without your permission. I think we can share this half of the country without you relocating thousands of miles away.”

Peter blinked snow flurries out of his eyes. “I just…feel like it might be time for a fresh start.”

Mr. Stark placed his metal hand on Peter’s shoulder. Peter fought the urge to shake his grip off. It was all wrong—he could feel the cold of the metal seeping through the jacket. There was no warmth. No familiar calluses or motor oil stains.

“Take it from me, kid—you can’t outrun your problems.”

“Okay, you’re getting touchy-feely again,” Peter warned.

They shouldered on through the snow, silent.

***

There was a single motel next to the diner. It was really more of a rest stop on the highway than an actual town.

“I can’t tell if we’re in a horror movie or a Christmas miracle kind of story,” Peter mused as they walked up to the counter at the motel.

“Well, this _is_ farm country—if there’s no room at the inn, I’m sure we can find a stable to sleep in.”

Fortunately, there was one room left at the motel. “I’ll call Pep and tell her we need them to pick us up tomorrow,” Tony said, looking around at the 80s décor and questionable water stains on the ceiling dubiously.

“Bet you regret spending Christmas Eve with me now, huh?” Peter asked. He tried for a laugh, but it fell slightly flat.

“Never,” Tony said. “And brace yourself, because I’m going to say something touchy-feely: I wouldn’t care if we were living in a cardboard box right now. I had five Christmases without you, and I’m never missing one again.”

Peter trailed after Mr. Stark wordlessly to the motel room.

“Anyway, good news,” Mr. Stark continued, as if he hadn’t just dropped that emotional bombshell. “The diner delivers, so we don’t even have to go back out into the cold again.”

He shoved some menus in Peter’s direction and ducked into the hallway to call Pepper.

It was—nice. It was really, really nice. To say he had missed this was an understatement. He felt— _whole_ in a way that he hadn’t since the snap.

He kicked off his shoes and pulled off his jacket, flopping backward onto one of the beds.

“Alright,” Tony said when he returned. “What are we eating—”

His voice trailed off suddenly.

“Pete,” he said in a dangerous tone. “What’s that on your wrist?”

Peter blinked. His sweater sleeve had ridden up slightly, revealing a ring of bruises.

“Oh, that.” He said, relaxing. “Just Spider-Man stuff.”

Mr. Stark made a buzzer sound. “Wrong answer. Happy said he was tracking your injuries.”

“It’s just a bruise, Mr. Stark, chill. I tell Happy when it’s something serious.” Basically, that amounted to calling Happy every time bystanders wanted to send him to the hospital, because he didn’t want anyone taking his blood and finding his anomalous DNA.

“Wrong answer again. Because I know you—it’s never just one bruise. Shirt off, Pete.”

“What the hell, Mr. Stark! I’m fine, honestly. I can take care of myself!”

“I know you _can_ take care of yourself, but that doesn’t mean you _should.”_

“I’m almost eighteen, Mr. Stark, it’s not a big deal.”

Tony glared at him. “Right, and you think I’m going to just stop caring about your welfare the second you turn eighteen? Shirt off.”

Peter glared back.

“If you don’t take your shirt off right now, I’m calling Helen and telling her to bring the quinjet.”

Peter’s pulse thudded rapidly in his ears. He felt like they were standing on the precipice of something, and if he took his shirt off and Mr. Stark saw his bruises, they wouldn’t be able to go back.

“You can’t just—manipulate me like that,” he said defensively, slowly backing up. “I’m not—you’re not my dad!”

He slid his eyes shut as soon as the words left his mouth. He didn’t want to see Mr. Stark’s reaction.

“I know, Pete,” Mr. Stark said softly. He sounded sad. “I know. But you don’t have to think of me as your dad in order for me to care about you and love you.”

“Just—stop saying that! You don’t love me! You _shouldn’t_ love me!” Peter shouted. He could hear somebody coughing pointedly through the thin motel walls, but he didn’t care enough to keep his voice down.

“No,” Mr. Stark said, his voice sharp. “You don’t get to say that. You deserve to be loved. You deserve to _feel_ loved. Look, bud, I _know_ that nothing about this was ideal. I woke up, but I was still out of it for months. You were alone, and you shouldn’t have been.”

He turned to the side, away from Peter, pinching the bridge of his nose with his remaining hand.

“But…for fuck’s sake, Peter, I woke up from a coma because I heard you crying!” His chest was rising and falling rapidly. “And…I feel like I’ve been waiting for you to let me comfort you ever since then.”

“Everyone I love dies or gets hurt because of me.” Peter’s back hit the wall. He sank to the ground and wrapped his arms around his knees.

“That’s not true, Peter.”

“My parents died because they were flying home early from a conference to be at my birthday,” Peter said, sarcastically counting on his fingers. “Then Ben died because I disobeyed him and went out without telling him. And then _you_ lost an arm and four months of your life to bring me back—”

“And I would do it again in a heartbeat. It was my decision to make, not yours. The same is true of your parents and Ben.”

Peter took a deep breath, burying his head against his knees. The words were on the tip of his tongue—the thought that had been sitting in the back of his mind, poisoning his dreams and his every waking thought for the past year. He stared at a spot on the carpet where navy blue had faded to gray.

“You replaced me,” he whispered, heart heavy. “You don’t need me anymore.”

In a single, swooping motion, Mr. Stark was on him, falling to his knees next to Peter, wrapping two strong arms around his shoulders—one flesh and one metal—and tugging Peter into a rough embrace.

“Never,” Mr. Stark said. He sounded like he was crying. “ _Never._ Is that—is that what you thought this whole time? Is that why you’ve been so distant?”

Peter shrugged. He wanted to be strong. He wanted to slip out of Mr. Stark’s arms and flee to the bathroom. Reconstruct his walls and move on with his life.

But Mr. Stark was holding him and rocking him slightly for the first time in years and he—he couldn’t do it.

“Oh, Pete. _Bambino,_ no. Just—no. I’m sorry you ever thought something like that.”

There was a warm hand cupping the back of his head. Peter shrugged, but his shoulders were shaking slightly with silent tears.

“You’re my kid, Pete. Look, I know it’s weird, but when you were—when you were gone, I promised myself that if I ever got you back I would tell you. I love you. You’re like a son to me. It’s okay if you don’t want me to be like your—”

“Oh. Wait,” Peter interrupted uncomfortably, his cheeks warm. “I do. Want you to be, um. Like my—my dad. I just thought that with Morgan—”

“Jesus, Parker, I know you’re an only child, but it’s totally normal for parents to have multiple kids and love them all,” Tony sighed, gathering him closer.

“But you never wanted kids before the snap.”

“No, I never wanted kids until I met _you.”_

“Oh. _Oh._ I just thought—”

“No.”

“Really?”

“Yes.”

“Okay,” Peter whispered, his heart in his throat.

“Jesus. Can we agree that we should just talk about how we’re feeling from here on out? Because this has been one hell of a painful year for me, and I can’t even begin to imagine how you were feeling—”

“Um. Yeah, maybe that would be for the best,” Peter shrugged, wiping his eyes with the sleeve of his sweater. “On a related note, I think two of my ribs are broken.”

He then ruined the moment by fainting.

***

Mr. Stark was pacing when Peter woke up next.

“You—” he barked, like Iron Man in the middle of a mission. “How do you feel?”

“Fine, ‘m fine,” Peter mumbled.

“Right—you need to eat.” Mr. Stark pointed at several takeout containers. “You need to finish at least two full meals, okay, _bambino?_ Otherwise, I’m making Helen bring the quinjet, and that’s final. _”_

Peter _was_ hungry. He managed to stand and wobble over to one of the beds, collapsing against the pillows and accepting a container full of eggs and bacon.

“ _Star Wars_ is on,” Tony told him, taking a seat on the other bed. “I checked the TV guide.”

“You should come sit over here,” Peter said. “I don’t like these kind of fries. You have to eat them for me.”

“Your wish is my command,” Tony acquiesced, scooting over onto Peter’s bed.

They leaned up against the headboard and ate their way through two _Star Wars_ movies and four takeout containers.

“I had FRIDAY scan you when you were out. She said your ribs are healing fine,” Mr. Stark commented during the trash compactor scene in _A New Hope._ “But—and this is non-negotiable—I’m reinstalling your suit’s injury protocols.”

“But you’re retired as Iron Man. You can’t just come flying out to save me whenever you feel like it. What if you’re with Morgan and you get an alert?”

Tony was quiet, thoughtfully chewing on a mozzarella stick.

“Look, kid, I didn’t tell you this because I didn’t want to freak you out, but Pep and I have been talking about moving back to the city.”

“Because of me?” Peter stared, disbelieving.

“I’d feel better if we were closer to you, Pete. And the schools out here are mediocre. We’d be able to enroll Morgan somewhere much better in Queens or Manhattan.”

“But—”

“No ‘buts.’ Remember what I said about the people who love you making their own choices? This is one of those choices.”

“But—”

“Anyway, remind me of who that is again—Qui-Gon?”

“What the _fuck,_ Tony—no, that’s Obi-Wan, you uncultured cretin. He’s practically the best character in the whole series.”

“No,” Tony murmured, wrapping his arm—his real arm—around Peter’s shoulders. “Not a huge fan.”

Peter couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “But—but—it’s _Obi-Wan,_ Tony!”

“He should’ve told Luke the truth about his father instead of lying to him to cushion the blow.”

“But—it was something Luke needed to figure out on his own.”

“No, it was something _Darth Vader_ needed to figure out on his own. All Obi-Wan needed to do was send Vader some holos of Luke when he was growing up, and I guarantee that Vader’s heart would’ve melted,” Tony argued, waving his prosthetic fingers around passionately.

“It’s not that simple, Tony.”

“No, Pete. It really is that simple. It really is. Trust me.”

“Oh,” Peter said softly, suddenly understanding. “Hey, Tony?”

“Yeah, kid. Hey, pass the hollandaise sauce?”

“I—I love you.”

Tony choked on a french fry.

“Anyway, here’s the hollandaise sauce,” Peter yawned and leaned his head on Tony’s shoulder.

“Love you too, Pete,” Tony said, sounding slightly choked up.

Outside, the snow fell peacefully and Darth Vader flew after Luke Skywalker as Luke tried to blow up the Death Star.

“The Force is strong with this one,” Vader remarked curiously to himself, and so began the end of the Empire.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ugh, I didn't have time to proofread this chapter. It's a few hours late and I don't feel great about the quality. Yikes. Sorry. 
> 
> Anyway, I got this idea that there's kind of an opposing parallel between Stars Wars and Tony/Peter's character arc. It's similar to Darth Vader and Luke, but Tony isn't evil like Vader. 
> 
> But anyway, thanks for reading, if you stuck with me to the end here!


End file.
